Staged startup after failover or reboot
First Claim
1. A method of bringing up a control processor to an active state, said control processor executing multiple software components, each component being brought up to an active state via one or more consecutive stages, and some of said stages being dependent on the prior execution of stages of different components, said method comprising:
- (a) creating a staging table which includes identifiers of the component stages arranged in the order in which the components should be executed, said staging table also including values separating at least some of the stage identifiers so as to implement the inter-stage dependencies;
(b) accessing said staging table and retrieving the identifiers of one or more stages;
(c) executing the stages identified by the identifiers retrieved in (b);
(d) receiving acknowledgements after the stages in (c) have completed their execution; and
(e) repeating (b)–
(d) for additional stages.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A “high availability” system comprises multiple switches under the control of one more control processors (“CPs”). Each CP performs a staged startup process when failing-over from another CP or otherwise booting up. The staged startup process involves multiple stages of processing of various executable components of the image. Some stages may depend on the prior execution of other stages. The preferred staged startup process includes the use of a staging table which permits the standby image'"'"'s FSS facility to efficiently schedule the various stages of the fail-over process taking into account the inter-stage dependencies.
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Citations
31 Claims
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1. A method of bringing up a control processor to an active state, said control processor executing multiple software components, each component being brought up to an active state via one or more consecutive stages, and some of said stages being dependent on the prior execution of stages of different components, said method comprising:
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(a) creating a staging table which includes identifiers of the component stages arranged in the order in which the components should be executed, said staging table also including values separating at least some of the stage identifiers so as to implement the inter-stage dependencies; (b) accessing said staging table and retrieving the identifiers of one or more stages; (c) executing the stages identified by the identifiers retrieved in (b); (d) receiving acknowledgements after the stages in (c) have completed their execution; and (e) repeating (b)–
(d) for additional stages. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)
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8. A system, comprising:
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a plurality of electronic devices; and a control processor having memory in which a staging table is stored, said control processor being coupled to and controlling the electronic devices, and a plurality of software components execute on said control processor; wherein said control processor transitions to an active state of operation by executing one or more stages associated with each software component wherein some stages are dependent on the prior execution of stages of different components, said transition to the active state also includes accessing the staging table to retrieve identifiers of stages to execute, said identifiers are arranged in said table so as to implement the inter-stage dependencies. - View Dependent Claims (9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A control processor adapted to perform a staged startup of a plurality of software components, each component being brought up to an active state in one or more stages, some of the stages being dependent on other stages associated with different components, the control processor comprising:
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a CPU; memory coupled to said CPU, said memory containing a staging table which includes names of the stages arranged in the order in which the components should be executed, said staging table also including null values separating at least some of the stage names so as to implement the inter-stage dependencies; and firmware stored in said memory and executed by said CPU, said firmware causing said control processor to; (a) access said staging table and retrieve the names of one or more stages; (b) execute the stages identified by the names retrieved in (a); (c) receive acknowledgements after the stages have completed their execution; and (d) repeat (a)–
(c) for additional stages. - View Dependent Claims (20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25)
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26. A computer readable storage medium for storing an executable set of software instructions that are executable by a CPU, said software instructions being operable to perform a staged startup up of a control processor which executes a plurality of software components, each component starting up via one or more stages and some of said stages being depend on stages of different components, said software instructions comprising:
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(a) a means for accessing a staging table, which includes names of the stages arranged in the order in which the components should be executed, said staging table also including null values separating at least some of the stage names so as to implement the inter-stage dependencies, and retrieving the names of one or more stages; (b) A means for executing the stages identified by the retrieved names; (c) a means for receiving acknowledgements after the stages have completed their execution; and a means for repeating (a)–
(c) for additional stages. - View Dependent Claims (27, 28, 29, 30, 31)
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Specification