System for allocating the resources of a computer system

• US 5,793,979 A
• Filed: 06/07/1995
• Issued: 08/11/1998
• Est. Priority Date: 05/27/1994
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Short, Robert T., Santerre, Pierre-Yves, Lipe, Ralph A., Voth, David W., Enstrom, Mark R., Lichtman, Moshe, Lennon, Thomas E.
• Primary Examiner(s): Lee, Thomas C.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Perveen, Rehana
• Application Number:
  US08/476,636
• Time in Patent Office: 1,161 Days
• Field of Search: 395/828, 395/837, 395/200.59, 395/835, 395/200.56, 395/162
• US Class Current: 709/226
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 15/177 Initialisation or configuration control processor initialisation G06F9/4405
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/4411 Configuring for operating with peripheral devices; Loading of device drivers

Abstract

A system for allocating resources for use by devices of a computer system. A possible configuration of elements of a resource is obtained. This possible configuration defines the resource elements that are appropriate for operating the devices within the computer system. For a selected device, a determination is made whether a particular resource element is available for use by this device. If not, another possible configuration is obtained and the process begins anew. In contrast, if the particular resource element is available, then this resource element is assigned for use by the selected device. This resource allocation process continues until resource elements have been assigned to the remaining devices.

Claims

1. In a system having a plurality of resources, each resource having a plurality of resource elements, a method for allocating said resource elements of said resources for use by devices of a computer system, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) obtaining a possible configuration of said resource elements, said possible configuration defining said resource elements of a selected one of said resources that are appropriate for operating a selected one of said devices with said computer system;

(b) determining for said selected device whether a particular one of said appropriate resource elements is available for use by a selected one of said devices;

(c) if said particular appropriate resource element is not available for use by said selected device, then repeating steps a-b;

(d) if said particular appropriate resource element is available for use by said selected device, then assigning said particular appropriate resource element for use by said selected device;

(e) repeating steps a-d until said appropriate resource elements have been assigned to remaining ones of said devices; and

(f) repeating steps a-e for each of said remaining resources.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said step of determining whether said particular appropriate resource element is available comprises the step of examining whether said particular appropriate resource element has been assigned for use by another one of said devices.

5. The method of claim 4, wherein said step of determining whether said particular appropriate resource element is available further comprises the step of examining whether said particular appropriate resource element has been reserved for use by another one of said devices.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein said particular appropriate resource element is assigned for use by said selected device only if said particular appropriate resource element is neither assigned nor reserved for another one of said devices.

2. A method for allocating a plurality of elements of a resource for use by devices of a computer system, said method comprising the steps of:

(a) obtaining a possible configuration of said resource elements, said possible configuration defining said elements of said resource that are appropriate for operating a selected one of said devices with said computer system;

(b) examining whether said particular appropriate resource element has been assigned for use by another one of said devices;

(c) if said particular appropriate resource element has been assigned for use by another one of said devices, then repeating steps a-b;

(d) if said particular appropriate resource element has not been assigned for use by another device, then examining whether said particular appropriate resource element has been reserved for use by another one of said devices;

(e) if said particular appropriate resource element has been reserved for use by another one of said devices, then repeating steps a-d;

(f) if said particular appropriate resource element has not been reserved for use by another one of said device, then assigning said particular appropriate resource element for use by said selected device; and

(g) repeating steps a-d until said appropriate resource elements have been assigned to remaining ones of said devices.

17. The method of claim 2, wherein the possible configuration of said resource elements is calculated based upon a device identification code and logical configuration data for the selected device.

3. A system having a plurality of resources, each resource having a plurality of elements, for allocating elements of said resources for use by devices of a computer system, said system comprising:

for each resource, means responsive to at least one possible configuration of said resource elements, each possible configuration defining said elements of said resource that are appropriate for operating said devices with said computer system, for determining whether a particular one of said appropriate resource elements for a selected one of said devices is available for use by said selected device; and

means for assigning said particular appropriate resource element for use by said selected device in response to determining that said particular appropriate resource element is available for use by said selected device.

7. The system of claim 3, wherein said determining means comprises:

means for examining whether a particular one of said appropriate resource elements has been assigned for use by another one of said devices,

said examining means further operative to determine whether said particular appropriate resource element for said selected device has been reserved for use by said another one of said devices.

8. The system of claim 3, wherein each device includes device information having a device identification code that uniquely identifies the corresponding device and logical configuration data that supplies configuration requirements comprising the resource elements appropriate for operating the corresponding device with the computer system.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the logical configuration data comprises computer resource requirement information and computer resource constraint information,

said computer resource requirement information defining certain resources of said computer system that are necessary for operation of said corresponding device with said computer system, and

said computer constraint information defining particular ones of said resource elements which are necessary for operation of said corresponding device with said computer system.

10. The system of claim 8 further comprising means for calculating at least one possible configuration of the resource elements based on the device identification code and the logical configuration data for the devices of the computer system.

11. The system of claim 8, wherein the determining means determines whether the particular appropriate resource element is available without manual intervention by analyzing whether the devices require a potential conflicting use of the particular appropriate resource element for operation with the computer system and,

if at least two of said devices require use of said particular appropriate resource element for operation with said computer system, then the determining means attempts to resolve the potential conflicting use of the particular appropriate resource element.

12. The system of claim 7, wherein the assigning means assigns said particular appropriate resource element to said selected device in the event that said particular appropriate resource element is neither assigned nor reserved for use by another one of the devices.

13. A computer-readable medium on which is stored a computer program for allocating a plurality of elements of a resource for use by devices of a computer system without manual intervention, the computer program comprising instructions, which when executed by a computer, perform the steps of:

(a) obtaining a possible configuration of said resource elements, said possible configuration defining said elements of said resource that are appropriate for operating a selected one of said devices with said computer system;

(b) examining whether said particular appropriate resource element has been assigned for use by another one of said devices;

(c) if said particular appropriate resource element has been assigned for use by another one of said devices, then repeating steps a-b;

(d) if said particular appropriate resource element has not been assigned for use by another device, then examining whether said particular appropriate resource element has been reserved for use by another one of said devices;

(e) if said particular appropriate resource element has been reserved for use by another one of said devices, then repeating steps a-d;

(f) if said particular appropriate resource element has not been reserved for use by another one of said device, then assigning said particular appropriate resource element for use by said selected device; and

(g) repeating steps a-d until said appropriate resource elements have been assigned to remaining ones of said devices.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the possible configuration of said resource elements is calculated based upon a device identification code and logical configuration data for the selected device.

14. In a computer having a plurality of resources, an apparatus for allocating elements of the resources for use by devices of the computer without manual intervention, comprising:

a configuration manager that develops a list of device configurations for each of the resources, each device configuration defining a requirement for one of the resource elements of one of the resources to support the operation of a corresponding one of the devices with the computer, and

an arbitrator, responsive to the list of device configurations, for each of the resources, that determines whether the resource elements are available to satisfy the resource element requirements defined by the device configurations, wherein the arbitrator allocates the available resource elements in the event that resource elements are available to satisfy the resource element requirements defined by the device configurations.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the arbitrator sends to the configuration manager an error message representing configuration failure in the event that the arbitrator fails to determine that resource elements are available to satisfy the resource element requirements defined by the device configurations.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the resource elements include nonreserved resource elements and reserved resource elements, the reserved resource elements representing a set of the resource elements that are held in reserve for possible use by selected devices, and the nonreserved resource elements representing the remaining resource elements.