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Method for reconfiguring containers without shutting down the system and with minimal interruption to on-line processing

  • US 6,032,217 A
  • Filed: 11/04/1997
  • Issued: 02/29/2000
  • Est. Priority Date: 11/04/1997
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A method for reconfiguring containers in an I/O subsystem of a data processing system, the I/O subsystem executing I/O requests received from at least one application running on the system and directed to at least one container of the I/O subsystem, each container having a container driver adapted to process I/O requests received by the I/O subsystem, the I/O subsystem having an entry point for each container that references a container driver and the associated data structures for that container, each I/O request referencing a specific entry point, said method comprising the steps of:

  • maintaining a process count of I/O requests previously received by the I/O subsystem;

    initiating a reconfiguration process by asserting a configuration flag in response to an I/O request to reconfigure the containers;

    blocking all new I/O requests to the I/O subsystem in response to the initiated reconfiguration process;

    decrementing the process count upon completing processing of the I/O requests previously received by the I/O subsystem;

    sending a signal to the I/O subsystem when the process count equals zero;

    reconfiguring the containers in the I/O subsystem in accordance with the reconfiguration process;

    unblocking the blocked I/O requests; and

    executing each unblocked I/O request by means of the specified entry point.

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