Total quotas for data storage system
Granted: January 5, 2016
Patent Number:
9229661
Quotas are tracked for user usage of hard disk drive space and offline backup storage space. The quota is enforced against the total space utilized by a user, not just high tier hard drive space usage. When data is migrated from hard disk drive space to backup storage space, data metadata is updated to reflect data kept offline for the user. As such, when users request to store new data, the data usage of hard disk space and backup storage space is determined from the metadata that…
On-blade cold sink for high-density clustered computer system
Granted: January 5, 2016
Patent Number:
9229497
A high performance computing system includes one or more blade enclosures having a cooling manifold and configured to hold a plurality of computing blades, and a plurality of computing blades in each blade enclosure with at least one computing blade including two computing boards. The system further includes two or more cooling plates with each cooling plate between two corresponding computing boards within the computing blade, and a fluid connection coupled to the cooling plate(s) and…
Transactional memory proxy
Granted: December 8, 2015
Patent Number:
9208090
Processors in a compute node offload transactional memory accesses addressing shared memory to a transactional memory agent. The transactional memory agent typically resides near the processors in a particular compute node. The transactional memory agent acts as a proxy for those processors. A first benefit of the invention includes decoupling the processor from the direct effects of remote system failures. Other benefits of the invention includes freeing the processor from having to be…
Address resource mapping in a shared memory computer system
Granted: November 3, 2015
Patent Number:
9176669
An algorithm for mapping memory and a method for using a high performance computing (“HPC”) system are disclosed. The algorithm takes into account the number of physical nodes in the HPC system, and the amount of memory in each node. Some of the nodes in the HPC system also include input/output (“I/O”) devices like graphics cards and non-volatile storage interfaces that have on-board memory; the algorithm also accounts for the number of such nodes and the amount of I/O memory…
Dynamic storage device libraries
Granted: October 13, 2015
Patent Number:
9158474
Tape device paths, library slots and drive information are automatically collected by agents at nodes in a library cluster. The information is reported to a central server database. The central server accesses the information and maps tape devices to path information so an administrator may easily have access to configuration information for the tape device cluster. When a tape device cluster is updated, for example through changes to a device, an added device, device failure or some…
Independent removable computer rack power distribution system for high-density clustered computer system
Granted: September 8, 2015
Patent Number:
9128682
A high performance computing system includes one or more blade enclosures configured to hold a plurality of computing blades, a connection interface, coupled to the one or more blade enclosures, having one or more connectors and a shared power bus that distributes power to the one or more blade enclosures, and at least one power shelf removably coupled to the one or more connectors and configured to hold one or more power supplies. The system may further include the computing blades and…
Micro ethernet connector
Granted: September 1, 2015
Patent Number:
9124049
In an embodiment, a micro ethernet connector includes an outer housing that has a recessed front end and a back end. The micro ethernet connector further includes an inner housing that is disposed within the recessed front end of the outer housing. The inner housing has an exposed end. The exposed end includes a recessed channel. The volume of the recessed channel is substantially equal to the volume of a correspondingly shaped protruding printed circuit board of a male micro ethernet…
High performance system that includes reconfigurable protocol tables within an ASIC wherein a first protocol block implements an inter-ASIC communications protocol and a second block implements an intra-ASIC function
Granted: September 1, 2015
Patent Number:
9122816
A high performance computing system is provided with an ASIC that communicates with another device in the system according to a protocol defined by the other device. The ASIC is coupled to a reconfigurable protocol table, in the form of a high speed content-addressable memory (“CAM”). The CAM includes instructions to control the execution of the protocol by the ASIC. The CAM may include instructions to control the ASIC in the event that unanticipated signals or other errors are…
Applying different transport mechanisms for user interface and image portions of a remotely rendered image
Granted: August 25, 2015
Patent Number:
9117288
A system and method for remote rendering of computer graphics wherein user transactions are reliable and the transmission of rendered graphics is relatively fast. The invention is implemented in a client server context, where a computer graphics application and rendering resources are located at a server. A user controls the graphics application through a client machine connected to the server through a computer network. The user's commands are sent from the client to the server, while…
Global synchronous clock circuit and method for blade processors
Granted: August 11, 2015
Patent Number:
9104343
Processor clock signals are generated for each processor in a HPC system, such that all the processor clock signals are of the same frequency. Furthermore, as part of a startup (boot) procedure, a process sets all time stamp counters (TSCs) of the processors, such they indicate identical times. Each blade of the HPC system recovers a recovered clock signal from a synchronous communication network, to which the blade is coupled. The blade generates a processor clock from the recovered…
Clustered filesystem with data volume snapshot
Granted: April 28, 2015
Patent Number:
9020897
A computer system with read/write access to storage devices creates a snapshot of a data volume at a point in time while continuing to accept access requests to the mirrored data volume by copying before making changes to the base data volume. Multiple snapshots may be made of the same data volume at different points in time. Only data that is not stored in a previous snapshot volume or in the base data volume are stored in the most recent snapshot volume.
Block device management
Granted: March 31, 2015
Patent Number:
8997122
Embodiments of the present invention perform a method for reading data from, writing data to, powering on, or configuring a block device without the kernel translating a file system operation into a block device operation. This is implemented by a using a core module to couple applications running in user space to a character device through a character device driver, the core module configures the character device to communicate with a block device through a block device driver without…
System and method for ordering of data transferred over multiple channels
Granted: March 3, 2015
Patent Number:
8971329
A multiple channel data transfer system (10) includes a source (12) that generates data packets with sequence numbers for transfer over multiple request channels (14). Data packets are transferred over the multiple request channels (14) through a network (16) to a destination (18). The destination (18) re-orders the data packets received over the multiple request channels (14) into a proper sequence in response to the sequence numbers to facilitate data processing. The destination (18)…
Applying different transport mechanisms for user interface and image portions of a remotely rendered image
Granted: December 30, 2014
Patent Number:
8924473
A system and method for remote rendering of computer graphics wherein user transactions are reliable and the transmission of rendered graphics is relatively fast. The invention is implemented in a client server context, where a computer graphics application and rendering resources are located at a server. A user controls the graphics application through a client machine connected to the server through a computer network. The user's commands are sent from the client to the server, while…
High performance system that includes reconfigurable protocol tables within an ASIC wherein a first protocol block implements an inter-ASIC communications protocol and a second block implements an intra-ASIC function
Granted: November 18, 2014
Patent Number:
8892805
A high performance computing system is provided with an ASIC that communicates with another device in the system according to a protocol defined by the other device. The ASIC is coupled to a reconfigurable protocol table, in the form of a high speed content-addressable memory (“CAM”). The CAM includes instructions to control the execution of the protocol by the ASIC. The CAM may include instructions to control the ASIC in the event that unanticipated signals or other errors are…
Block device management
Granted: November 4, 2014
Patent Number:
8881176
Embodiments of the present invention perform a method for reading data from, writing data to, powering on, or configuring a block device without the kernel translating a file system operation into a block device operation. This is implemented by a using a core module to couple applications running in user space to a character device through a character device driver, the core module configures the character device to communicate with a block device through a block device driver without…
Logical block protection for tape interchange
Granted: November 4, 2014
Patent Number:
8879195
A two part process is used for modifying records to be written and retrieved from tape devices. A record is appended with a cyclic redundancy check and a string of zeros. Submitting the entire record to tape drives which are logical block protection enabled will result in no change. For drives that are not LBP enabled, the string of zeros at the end of the record is removed. In addition to determining whether a drive is LBP compliant, a determination may be made as to whether a drive is…
Multi-class heterogeneous clients in a clustered filesystem
Granted: September 16, 2014
Patent Number:
8838658
A cluster of computer system nodes connected by a storage area network include two classes of nodes. The first class of nodes can act as clients or servers, while the other nodes can only be clients. The client-only nodes require much less functionality and can be more easily supported by different operating systems. To minimize the amount of data transmitted during normal operation, the server responsible for maintaining a cluster configuration database repeatedly multicasts the IP…
System and method for conveying information
Granted: August 19, 2014
Patent Number:
8812721
A system and method for conveying data include the capability to determine whether a transaction request credit has been received at a computer module, the transaction request credit indicating that at least a portion of a transaction request message may be sent. The system and method also include the capability to determine, of a transaction request message is to be sent, whether at least a portion of the transaction request message may be sent and to send the at least a portion of the…
Data coherence method and apparatus for multi-node computer system
Granted: August 19, 2014
Patent Number:
8812765
A method for maintaining data coherency in a shared-memory computer system having a plurality of nodes divides the local memory of a given node into one or more blocks and stores a data record for each block indicating a plurality of node groups and a selection of the node groups. Each selected node group represents a number of nodes, and selected node groups represent at least one node that has requested access to the block. In response to receiving an access request from a requesting…
