Abstract: A 90 degree bump placement layout for an integrated circuit power grid is provided. This layout improves integrated circuit performance and reliability and gives an integrated circuit designer added flexibility and uniformity in designing the integrated circuit. Further, a patterned bump array for a top metal layer of an integrated circuit having a plurality of 90 degree bump placement structures is provided.

Abstract: The illustrative embodiment of the present invention provides a method for automating the allocation of network storage. The method of the present invention enables a system administrator or other authorized user to set policies for network storage. Available storage locations are dynamically located by attribute. The network storage policy is interpreted and applied to the available storage locations. By automating the storage allocation process, the storage policy is consistently applied without user intervention thus allowing a system administrator to devote more time to other network management responsibilities.

Abstract: A three-tiered data imaging system is used on a distributed computer system comprising hosts connected by a network. The lowest tier comprises management facade software running on each machine that converts a platform-dependent interface written with low-level kernel routines that actually implement the data imaging system to platform-independent method calls. The middle tier is a set of federated Java beans that communicate with each other, with the management facades and with the upper tier of the system. The upper tier of the inventive system comprises presentation programs that can be directly manipulated by management personnel to view and control the system. In one embodiment, the federated Java beans can run on any machine in the system and communicate, via the network. A data imaging management facade runs on selected hosts and at least one data imaging bean also runs on those hosts.

Abstract: Data volumes on local hosts are discovered and managed by federated Java beans that run on each host. The Java beans form part of a three-tiered data services management. The lowest tier comprises management facade software running on each machine that converts platform-dependent interface written with the low-level kernel routines to platform-independent method calls. The middle tier is a set of federated Java beans that communicate with the management facades and with the upper tier of the system. The upper tier of the inventive system comprises presentation programs that can be directly manipulated by management personnel to view and control the system. The federated beans can configure and control data volumes with either a SCSI terminal emulation interface or a storage volume interface and use a logical disk aggregator to present all volumes available on a local host as a single “logical volume” in which all information regarding the various volumes is presented in a uniform manner.

Abstract: An apparatus for decoding a Motion Compensated-Discrete Cosine Transform (MC-DCT) video stream includes an input port to receive an MC-DCT video stream with an associated hierarchy of data structures including a sequence data structure, a picture data structure, a slice data structure, and a macroblock data structure. A monitor processor splits the MC-DCT video stream into a set of video streams. A set of sub-processors processes the set of video streams. Each sub-processor has an assigned computational task performed on a specified hierarchical level of the associated hierarchy of data structures. Each sub-processor performs the assigned computational task with a designated data structure including all parameter data required at the specified hierarchical level.

Abstract: A high-performance band combine function to transform a source image of n bands to a destination image of m bands. A source image vector is multiplied with a transformation matrix having n+1 columns and m rows. The values in the transformation matrix may be user-selected. The product of the source image and the transformation matrix is a destination image vector. The destination image vector may be displayed on a computer monitor. To perform the function in a digital system, the pixels of the source image are converted to a partitioned format. The source image is multiplied with the transformation matrix values using partitioned arithmetic. In the digital system, a plurality of partitioned arithmetic operations may be performed in parallel.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for reducing electromagnetic radiation emanating from a computer enclosure are disclosed, for application to computer enclosure enclosing at least one source of electromagnetic radiation of a computer system, where the enclosure includes an unshielded opening in the computer enclosure through which an undesirable amount of electromagnetic radiation from the source is capable of passing to an exterior of the computer enclosure. The apparatus includes a system board mounted to a frame of the computer enclosure, and a riser card connected to the system board within the computer enclosure. The riser card is a PCB having at least one ground layer and a signal layer, and extends transversely from the system board. The riser card divides an interior space of the computer enclosure into two compartments, a source compartment containing the source of electromagnetic radiation, and an unshielded compartment having the unshielded opening in it.

Abstract: A distributed settings control protocol. One or more embodiments of the invention provide the ability for an application running on a server across a network to modify various settings related to the terminals such as display resolution, audio output configuration (such as volume control or headphones v. speaker), and energy saver procedures. These abilities are provided by adhering to several protocol properties.

Abstract: The problems outlined above may in large part be solved by a system and method for testing integrated passive components in a printed circuit board. In one embodiment, testing of integrated passive components may be conducted prior to completing the final lamination of the printed circuit board. The testing may be conducted on a tester having movable test probes. The method may include connecting a first test probe to a conductive plane, which may be electrically connected to the first terminals of two or more components. The conductive plane may be a ground plane, a power plane, or a signal plane. The first test probe may remain in a fixed position throughout the testing. A second test probe may be electrically connected to the second terminal of the first component. Following the connection of the second test probe, an electrical characteristic of the first component may be measured.

Abstract: A network access authentication system including a directory service containing a remote access password and a standard access password for each user of the network, using an authentication protocol that provides information on whether a user is accessing the network locally of remotely, and including a front-end between the directory service and the authentication protocol. The front-end executes the steps of: receiving a user identifier and a user password entered by a user through said authentication protocol; retrieving from the directory service the remote access password and the standard access password corresponding to the user identifier; if the authentication protocol indicates a remote access, comparing the user password to the remote access password, else comparing the user password to the standard access password; and granting access to the network if the comparing step is successful.

Abstract: A computer system includes processing circuitry and alarm circuitry connectable to a network. A power sub-system includes at least three power supply units, wherein at least a predetermined plurality of power supply units are required to power the computer system. A power distribution mechanism is connectable to the power supply units. The power distribution mechanism is connected to the processing circuitry to supply main power thereto and is connected to the alarm circuitry to supply standby power thereto. The power distribution mechanism is operable to supply main power to the processing circuitry when at least a said predetermined plurality of connected power supplies are operative and is operable to supply standby power to the alarm circuitry when at least one power supply is operative.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and articles of manufacture consistent with features of the present invention configure log files with header information that allow a logging service to directly access various locations of the log file. Also, log records contained in the log file may be configured with fields that allow the logging service to directly access a log record, as well as confirm its identity. Additionally, the logging service may be configured to process various requests for log records from a client using the log record fields. The logging service may use offset fields in each log record to perform efficient traversal operations while processing the requests. Furthermore, various fields in each log record may be used by logging service to perform consistency checks to verify the configuration of each log record.

Abstract: An invention is provided for customizing Java API implementations. A plurality of class files is obtained, wherein the class files are capable of being used together to provide a plurality of functional behaviors to an application. A feature marker is then associated with each of the class files based on a functionality provided by the class file. Each feature marker indicates a particular functionality provided by the plurality of class files. Particular class files are then selected from the plurality of class files based on the feature markers associated with the particular class files. In one aspect, the plurality of class files can comprise a first JAR file, and the selected class files can be used to generate a second JAR file. The second JAR file can also exclude class files that are not selected. Further, non-Java based native files, if any, utilized by the plurality of class files can also be customized to a subset of the original native files in a similar manner.

Abstract: A system for executing a software application comprising a plurality of hardware independent bytecodes is provided comprising a computing system that generates bytecodes, a virtual machine, remote to the computing system, that receives a plurality of bytecodes from said computing system, and executes said plurality of bytecodes, a system for testing said bytecodes against a set of predetermined criteria in which the testing is securely distributed between said virtual machine and said computing system so that the bytecode verification completed by the computing system is authenticated by the virtual machine prior to the execution of the bytecodes by said virtual machine. A method for distributed bytecode verification is also provided.

Abstract: A system and method for processing batch requests in a CIM system environment is disclosed. Methods, systems and articles of manufacture consistent with the present invention configure a client with a modified API that creates new CIMOperation objects for each operation included in a batch request. The CIMOperation objects are placed in a batch list of operations that are sent to a CIM object manager for processing. Furthermore, the modified client API returns an operation ID to the client for each operation included in the batch list. The CIM object manager, based on the type of protocol used by the client, processes each CIMOperation object included in the batch list to obtain a corresponding result. Each result is placed in a corresponding CIMOperation object included in the batch list received from the client. The batch list of CIMOperation objects embedded with the results is sent back to the client which may use the operation IDs to retrieve the result data located within each CIMOperation object.

Abstract: Methods, systems and articles of manufacture consistent with the present invention configure a computing system with a logging service that interacts with implementation objects associated with particular types of storage devices through a storage interface. The implementation objects may include processes used to access the storage devices during logging operations. The logging service may also be configured to adjust which storage device is to be used for logging operations without restarting the computing system. This adjustment may be made through a property file that includes properties specific to individual types of storage devices. The property file may be modified to include new properties by a system administrator or by the logging service during runtime operations of the computing system. The new properties may designate new storage devices to be used by the logging service to perform subsequent logging operations.

Abstract: A system and method for selectively granting access to a target object. In one embodiment, the system includes an object data store, an access control instruction data store, an action data store, a context, and an access determination engine. The object data store includes a plurality of hierarchically structured target objects and a plurality of hierarchically structured actor objects. The access control instruction data store includes a plurality of hierarchically structured access control instructions. The action data store comprising a plurality action objects. The context includes an actor attribute, an action attribute, and a target attribute. The access determination engine configured to selectively grant access to the target object based on a first set of access control instructions having attributes that match the context and a second set of access control instructions having attributes that are hierarchically broader than the attributes of the context.

Abstract: An invention is provided for customizing attributes of a distributed processing system. An embodiment includes a lookup service capable of advertising attributes of a processing resource, and a processing resource executing an agent process, which is in communication with the lookup service. The processing resource is capable of loading a set of core attributes defining characteristics of the processing resource. Further included are a plurality of dynamic attribute classes and a dynamic attribute list file that provides information concerning the dynamic attribute classes. In use, the agent process reads the dynamic attribute list to obtain the information concerning the dynamic attribute classes, and then loads the plurality of dynamic attribute classes utilizing the information in the dynamic attribute list concerning the dynamic attribute classes.

Abstract: An electronic apparatus for receiving source synchronous signals is provided. The receiver continuously monitors the phase relationship between each data signal and the source synchronous clock signal. In this manner, the electronic apparatus can compensate for phase discrepancies that occur over time without having to interrupt any data operations.

Abstract: A circuit includes a drive transistor coupled between an output and a first potential, a constant current circuit coupled between the gate of the drive transistor and a second potential, and a compensation circuit coupled between the gate of the drive transistor and the first potential. The constant current circuit draws a current from the gate of the drive transistor to the second potential that is substantially independent of process and temperature variations, and therefore turns on the drive transistor at a constant rate, regardless of process and temperature variations. The compensation circuit draws a small current from the gate of the drive transistor to the first potential that is dependent upon process and temperature variations of the drive transistor, and therefore reduces the discharge rate of the gate of the drive transistor according to process and temperature variations of the drive transistor.