Boot Acceleration For Computer Systems

• US 20080209198A1
• Filed: 02/26/2007
• Published: 08/28/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 02/26/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Thompson, Mark J., Majni, Timothy W.
• Application Number:
  US11/678,926
• Publication Number:
  US 20080209198A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 713/2
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4401 Bootstrapping security arrangements therefor G06F21/57

Abstract

Boot acceleration for computer systems is disclosed. In an exemplary embodiment, a method of boot acceleration for a computer system may comprise monitoring data requests during a boot procedure. The method may also comprise pre-fetching data from a storage device during a subsequent boot procedure based at least in part on the monitored data requests. The method may also comprise accessing the pre-fetched data from a cache to accelerate the subsequent boot procedure.

Claims

1. A computer system with boot acceleration, comprising:

at least one storage device having a disk controller;

a boot acceleration procedure called during a boot procedure to monitor the disk controller for data requests during the boot procedure; and

a cache for accessing pre-fetched data from the storage device during a subsequent boot procedure based at least in part on the monitored data requests.

2. The computer system of claim 1 further comprising a list of hints including information identified by monitoring the disk controller during at least one boot procedure.

3. The computer system of claim 1 further comprising a list of hints including information received from a system BIOS during at least one boot procedure.

4. The computer system of claim 1 further comprising a list of hints including information received from an operating system (OS) during at least one boot procedure.

5. The computer system of claim 4 further comprising a list of hints including information received from device drivers resident in the OS during at least one boot procedure.

6. The computer system of claim 1 further comprising an adaptive list of hints.

7. The computer system of claim 1 wherein the pre-fetched data is accessed from the cache without having to access the at least one storage device when the pre-fetched data is needed during the subsequent boot procedure.

8. The computer system of claim 1 further comprising RAID storage updated based at least in part on the monitored data requests.

9. The method of boot acceleration for a computer system, comprising:

monitoring data requests during a boot procedure;

pre-fetching data from a storage device during a subsequent boot procedure based at least in part on the monitored data requests; and

accessing the pre-fetched data from a cache to accelerate the subsequent boot procedure.

10. The method of claim 9 wherein pre-fetching data from the storage device is based on a list of hints.

11. The method of claim 10 further comprising updating the list of hints with each subsequent boot.

12. The method of claim 10 further comprising updating the list of hints by the operating system after the boot procedure.

13. The method of claim 9 further comprising storing the pre-fetched data in the cache before the pre-fetched data is needed during the subsequent boot procedure.

14. The method of claim 9 wherein the pre-fetched data is accessed from the cache without having to access the storage device when the pre-fetched data is needed during the subsequent boot procedure.

15. The method of claim 9 wherein monitoring data requests includes identifying disk blocks on the storage device.

16. The method of claim 15 wherein monitoring data requests includes identifying boot events corresponding to the identified disk blocks on the storage device.

17. The method of claim 9 wherein monitoring data requests includes identifying data access requests on the storage device as read or write.

18. The method of claim 17 further comprising pre-reading additional data blocks for RAID storage parity calculations to accelerate anticipated operating system write operations.

19. The method of claim 9 wherein pre-fetching data includes sequencing data access requests to reduce data access time on the storage device.

20. A computer system for accelerating a boot procedure, comprising:

means for identifying data to pre-fetch from a hard disk drive during a boot procedure;

means for pre-fetching the data from the hard disk drive during a subsequent boot procedure; and

means for accessing the pre-fetched data without having to access the hard disk drive when the pre-fetched data is needed during the subsequent boot procedure.

21. The computer system of claim 20 further comprising sequencing means for pre-fetching data from the hard disk drive to reduce data access time.

22. The computer system of claim 20 further comprising means for accelerating anticipated operating system write operations for RAID storage.