Shared simultaneously-connected removable drives and servers each housing an I/O controller which maintains an uninterrupted protocol connection
US7647431B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Jul 7, 2008 |
| Grant date | Jan 12, 2010 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Jul 7, 2028 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC Y)Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies
- CPC primaryY02D10/00
- WIPO fieldComputer technology
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Local drive presence is provided for local and remote drives by maintaining a plurality of uninterrupted protocol connections between a plurality of I/O controllers and a plurality of device interfaces through which peripheral bus commands are transmitted. Preferably, the I/O controllers are each housed in a separate server blade and provide each blade with access to the local and remote drives. At each of the device interfaces, rather than attaching an actual storage device, peripheral bus commands received at the device interfaces are serialized and conditionally passed or suppressed to and from the shared drive which is shared amongst the plurality of uninterrupted protocol connections. Preferably, the plurality of uninterrupted protocol connections is maintained such that the shared drives can be simultaneously shared. In one embodiment, the local drives are provided in a media tray which is shared amongst a plurality blades.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.