Patents by Inventor William Joseph Armstrong
William Joseph Armstrong has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
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Patent number: 11755435Abstract: A first logical partition in a first processing complex of a server cluster is operated in an active mode and a second logical partition in the processing complex is operated in a standby mode. Upon detection of a failure in a second processing complex of the server cluster. the standby mode logical partition in the first processing complex is activated to an active mode. In one embodiment, partition resources are transferred from an active mode logical partition to the logical partition activated from standby mode. Other embodiments are described and claimed.Type: GrantFiled: June 18, 2019Date of Patent: September 12, 2023Assignee: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATIONInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Michael Howard Hartung, Yu-Cheng Hsu, Glenn Rowan Wightwick
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Publication number: 20190303255Abstract: A first logical partition in a first processing complex of a server cluster is operated in an active mode and a second logical partition in the processing complex is operated in a standby mode. Upon detection of a failure in a second processing complex of the server cluster. the standby mode logical partition in the first processing complex is activated to an active mode. In one embodiment, partition resources are transferred from an active mode logical partition to the logical partition activated from standby mode. Other embodiments are described and claimed.Type: ApplicationFiled: June 18, 2019Publication date: October 3, 2019Inventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Michael Howard Hartung, Yu-Cheng Hsu, Glenn Rowan Wightwick
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Patent number: 10394672Abstract: A first logical partition in a first processing complex of a server cluster is operated in an active mode and a second logical partition in the processing complex is operated in a standby mode. Upon detection of a failure in a second processing complex of the server cluster. the standby mode logical partition in the first processing complex is activated to an active mode. In one embodiment, partition resources are transferred from an active mode logical partition to the logical partition activated from standby mode. Other embodiments are described and claimed.Type: GrantFiled: March 25, 2011Date of Patent: August 27, 2019Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Michael Howard Hartung, Yu-Cheng Hsu, Glenn Rowan Wightwick
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Patent number: 9003417Abstract: Processor time accounting is enhanced by per-thread internal resource usage counter circuits that account for usage of processor core resources to the threads that use them. Relative resource use can be determined by detecting events such as instruction dispatches for multiple threads active within the processor, which may include idle threads that are still occupying processor resources. The values of the resource usage counters are used periodically to determine relative usage of the processor core by the multiple threads. If all of the events are for a single thread during a given period, the processor time is allocated to the single thread. If no events occur in the given period, then the processor time can be equally allocated among threads. If multiple threads are generating events, a fractional resource usage can be determined for each thread and the counters may be updated in accordance with their fractional usage.Type: GrantFiled: April 30, 2012Date of Patent: April 7, 2015Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Michael Stephen Floyd, Ronald Nick Kalla, Larry Scott Leitner, Balaram Sinharoy
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Patent number: 8458709Abstract: An apparatus and program product utilize a multithreaded processor having at least one hardware thread among a plurality of hardware threads that is capable of being selectively activated and deactivated responsive to a control circuit. The control circuit additionally provides the capability of controlling how an inactive thread can be activated after the thread has been deactivated, e.g., by enabling or disabling reactivation in response to an interrupt.Type: GrantFiled: January 23, 2009Date of Patent: June 4, 2013Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Bruce G. Mealey, Naresh Nayar, Balaram Sinharoy
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Publication number: 20120216210Abstract: Processor time accounting is enhanced by per-thread internal resource usage counter circuits that account for usage of processor core resources to the threads that use them. Relative resource use can be determined by detecting events such as instruction dispatches for multiple threads active within the processor, which may include idle threads that are still occupying processor resources. The values of the resource usage counters are used periodically to determine relative usage of the processor core by the multiple threads. If all of the events are for a single thread during a given period, the processor time is allocated to the single thread. If no events occur in the given period, then the processor time can be equally allocated among threads. If multiple threads are generating events, a fractional resource usage can be determined for each thread and the counters may be updated in accordance with their fractional usage.Type: ApplicationFiled: April 30, 2012Publication date: August 23, 2012Inventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Michael Stephen Floyd, Ronald Nick Kalla, Larry Scott Leitner, Balaram Sinharoy
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Patent number: 8234645Abstract: An apparatus, program product and method support the deallocation of a data structure in a multithreaded computer without requiring the use of computationally expensive semaphores or spin locks. Specifically, access to a data structure is governed by a shared pointer that, when a request is received to deallocate the data structure, is initially set to a value that indicates to any thread that later accesses the pointer that the data structure is not available. In addition, to address any thread that already holds a copy of the shared pointer, and thus is capable of accessing the data structure via the shared pointer after the initiation of the request, all such threads are monitored to determine whether any thread is still using the shared pointer by determining whether any thread is executing program code that is capable of using the shared pointer to access the data structure.Type: GrantFiled: January 8, 2008Date of Patent: July 31, 2012Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Peter Joseph Heyrman, Naresh Nayar
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Patent number: 8209698Abstract: Processor time accounting is enhanced by per-thread internal resource usage counter circuits that account for usage of processor core resources to the threads that use them. Relative resource use can be determined by detecting events such as instruction dispatches for multiple threads active within the processor, which may include idle threads that are still occupying processor resources. The values of the resource usage counters are used periodically to determine relative usage of the processor core by the multiple threads. If all of the events are for a single thread during a given period, the processor time is allocated to the single thread. If no events occur in the given period, then the processor time can be equally allocated among threads. If multiple threads are generating events, a fractional resource usage can be determined for each thread and the counters may be updated in accordance with their fractional usage.Type: GrantFiled: October 15, 2009Date of Patent: June 26, 2012Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Michael Stephen Floyd, Ronald Nick Kalla, Larry Scott Leitner, Balaram Sinharoy
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Patent number: 8209692Abstract: An apparatus, program product and method support the deallocation of a data structure in a multithreaded computer without requiring the use of computationally expensive semaphores or spin locks. Specifically, access to a data structure is governed by a shared pointer that, when a request is received to deallocate the data structure, is initially set to a value that indicates to any thread that later accesses the pointer that the data structure is not available. In addition, to address any thread that already holds a copy of the shared pointer, and thus is capable of accessing the data structure via the shared pointer after the initiation of the request, all such threads are monitored to determine whether any thread is still using the shared pointer by determining whether any thread is executing program code that is capable of using the shared pointer to access the data structure.Type: GrantFiled: October 29, 2007Date of Patent: June 26, 2012Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Peter Joseph Heyrman, Naresh Nayar
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Patent number: 8108196Abstract: An apparatus and program product for coordinating the distribution of CPUs as among logically-partitioned virtual processors. A virtual processor may yield a CPU to precipitate an occurrence upon which its own execution may be predicated. As such, program code may dispatch the surrendered CPU to a designated virtual processor.Type: GrantFiled: July 17, 2008Date of Patent: January 31, 2012Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Chris Francois, Naresh Nayer
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Patent number: 8055838Abstract: A partition manager includes an I/O reconfiguration mechanism and a logical partition suspend/resume mechanism that work together to perform autonomic I/O reconfiguration in a logically partitioned computer system. When I/O reconfiguration is required, the affected logical partitions are suspended, the I/O is reconfigured, and the affected logical partitions are resumed. Because the logical partitions are suspended during I/O reconfiguration, any ghost packet that may occur when the I/O is reconfigured is ignored.Type: GrantFiled: July 22, 2003Date of Patent: November 8, 2011Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: David Alan Bailey, William Joseph Armstrong, Naresh Nayar, Gregory Michael Nordstrom
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Patent number: 8024726Abstract: An apparatus, program product and method distributes work within a logically partitioned computer system by binding a virtual processor or other resource of a hypervisor partition to a partition or physical resource. The partition or physical resource to which the virtual resource is bound is the same partition or physical resource upon whose behalf the hypervisor resource does work. The partition requesting work of the hypervisor partition is thus penalized by virtue the virtual resource using a physical resource owned by the requesting partition.Type: GrantFiled: May 28, 2004Date of Patent: September 20, 2011Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Christopher Francois, Naresh Nayar
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Patent number: 8019962Abstract: An apparatus, program product and method for tracking the state of a migrating logical partition. Embodiments may use the state to determine the readiness and/or appropriateness of a page of the logical partition for transferring. The state may include a value or other data used to track changes affecting the page or the relative ease and/or appropriateness of migrating the page. A page manager table with entries corresponding to the state of each page of the logical partition may be used to track the state while the logical partition continues to run during a migration.Type: GrantFiled: April 16, 2007Date of Patent: September 13, 2011Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Michael J. Corrigan, Stuart Zachary Jacobs, David Anthony Larson, Naresh Nayar, Wade Byron Ouren
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Patent number: 8001342Abstract: A method that can simplify a recovery of a system. The method includes storing multiple types of information, and includes: a first stage of storing information representative of a content of a persistent memory entity at a certain point in time; and a second stage of storing information representative of a state of a virtual machine at the certain point in time; and recovering a system that associates between the first stage of storing information and the second stage of storing information.Type: GrantFiled: March 29, 2006Date of Patent: August 16, 2011Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Alain Charles Azagury, Shmuel Ben-Yehuda, Eliezer Dekel, Michael E. Factor, Amiram Hayardeny
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Publication number: 20110173493Abstract: A first logical partition in a first processing complex of a server cluster is operated in an active mode and a second logical partition in the processing complex is operated in a standby mode. Upon detection of a failure in a second processing complex of the server cluster. the standby mode logical partition in the first processing complex is activated to an active mode. In one embodiment, partition resources are transferred from an active mode logical partition to the logical partition activated from standby mode. Other embodiments are described and claimed.Type: ApplicationFiled: March 25, 2011Publication date: July 14, 2011Applicant: INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATIONInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Michael Howard Hartung, Yu-Cheng Hsu, Glenn Rowan Wightwick
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Patent number: 7962910Abstract: A logically-partitioned computer, program product and method utilize a flexible and adaptable communication interface between a partition and a partition manager, which permits optimal handling of partition management operations such as state change operations and the like over a wide variety of circumstances. In particular, a partition is permitted to indicate, in connection with a request to perform a partition management operation, whether an asynchronous notification should be generated or suppressed in association with the performance of the partition management operation by a partition manager. As a result, asynchronous notifications are selectively generated in association with the performance of partition management operations based upon indications in the requests made by partitions for such operations.Type: GrantFiled: August 6, 2007Date of Patent: June 14, 2011Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Naresh Nayar, Gregory Michael Nordstrom, Timothy Joseph Torzewski
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Patent number: 7949008Abstract: An audio application program is isolated from an Internet application program in a cell phone system having a processor. An operating system program, a partition manager process and the audio and Internet application programs are stored in a computer readable memory of the cell phone. The method includes executing the partition manager process, the audio application program and the Internet application program by the cell phone system processor. Executing the partition manager process includes the partition manager process controlling the audio application program executing to be associated with a first executing instance of the cell phone operating system and the Internet application program executing to be associated with a second executing instance of the cell phone operating system, so that the audio application program is isolated from the Internet application program.Type: GrantFiled: January 30, 2006Date of Patent: May 24, 2011Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Richard Louis Arndt, Renato J. Recio, James Walter Rymarczyk, Jacobo A. Vargas
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Patent number: 7937616Abstract: A first logical partition in a first processing complex of a server cluster is operated in an active mode and a second logical partition in the processing complex is operated in a standby mode. Upon detection of a failure in a second processing complex of the server cluster. the standby mode logical partition in the first processing complex is activated to an active mode. In one embodiment, partition resources are transferred from an active mode logical partition to the logical partition activated from standby mode. Other embodiments are described and claimed.Type: GrantFiled: June 28, 2005Date of Patent: May 3, 2011Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Michael Howard Hartung, Yu-Cheng Hsu, Glenn Rowan Wightwick
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Patent number: 7882326Abstract: A partition migration mechanism migrates a logical partition executing an operating system and resumes the logical partition before all resources in the logical partition have been migrated. When a partition is being migrated, a call checkpoint mechanism creates checkpoints of the state of the operating system when the partition manager is called. Before performing the call to the partition manager, a check is made to determine if all resources required by the call are available. If so, the partition manager call is executed. If all resources required by the call are not available, a resource fault is indicated, which causes the operating system state from the last checkpoint to be restored and a corresponding virtual CPU to be preempted until the resource that caused the fault becomes available. Exceptions that do not require the missing resource may be performed while the virtual CPU awaits the resource to become available.Type: GrantFiled: March 23, 2007Date of Patent: February 1, 2011Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, David Anthony Larson, Naresh Nayar
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Patent number: 7849347Abstract: An apparatus, program product and method for automatically and transparently determining the time required to migrate a logical partition. This determined latency may be used to update clocks and other time-related values of the migrated logical partition.Type: GrantFiled: April 16, 2007Date of Patent: December 7, 2010Assignee: International Business Machines CorporationInventors: William Joseph Armstrong, Adam Charles Lange-Pearson, Naresh Nayar