Abstract: A high speed, microcomputer based, Fibre Channel compatible and fault tolerant information processing and mass storage system especially suited for information servers and application servers. A unique and extremely versatile system architecture, including a dual loop arbitrated, Fibre Channel capable, multiple-fault tolerant, hot swappable mass storage disk array, permits combinations of servers and mass storage arrays which can be tailored for a wide variety of applications and which can be configured with emphasis on the system characteristics such as redundancy, speed, processing capability, storage capability, and the like, as desired. A unique backplane and/or midplane arrangement for connecting the system components allows for easy and, in most cases, on-line field upgrading and/or service and at the same time provides for the very effective cooling of components, particularly those such as disk drives which tend to produce a lot of heat.

Abstract: A high speed, microcomputer based, Fibre Channel compatible and fault tolerant information processing and mass storage system especially suited for information servers and application servers. A unique and extremely versatile system architecture, including a dual loop arbitrated, Fibre Channel capable, multiple-fault tolerant, hot-swappable mass storage disk array, permits combinations of servers and mass storage arrays which can be tailored for a wide variety of applications and which can be configured with emphasis on the system characteristics such as redundancy, speed, processing capability, storage capability, and the like, as desired. A unique backplane and/or midplane arrangement for connecting the system components allows for easy and, in most cases, on-line field upgrading and/or service and at the same time provides for the very effective cooling of components, particularly those such as disk drives which tend to produce a lot of heat.

Abstract: The information server system incorporates a high speed, microcomputer based server running industry standard operating system software enhanced to include functionality directed to operation of a new disk array controller, which controls the physically independent or integral disk storage device array, and communications interface. The disk array controller subsystem controls and communicates with the disk storage device array with a Fiber Channel protocol. The disk storage device array incorporates a plurality of disk storage devices with a corresponding number of bypass interface cards configured to facilitate the on-line addition, removal and replacement of disk storage devices.

Abstract: The information server system provides a scalable expansion capability, due to the implementation of a unique mid-plane connector board for all components of the information server system that allows for multiply mirrored components to significantly improve fault tolerance of the server system. An integrated diagnostics monitoring subsystem eliminates the incompatability problems previously associated with performing diagnostics of the server system. A method is also provided for increasing the throughput rate of the user communications interface by installing a hash table database in the end user computer system to bypass a similar but slower function in the end user modem, to place the bulk of the transmission reception load on the main CPU, and synchronizing the modem with the transmission speed of the server unit.