Abstract: In one embodiment, the invention provides a method for repairing a defective storage device in a physical storage-device array having a plurality of storage devices. The method comprises the steps of identifying a disk error associated with the defective storage device; effecting an error recovery pause based on the disk error; processing one or more outstanding data storage or retrieval requests; and generating a new data storage request instructing the physical disk device array having the defective storage device to store valid data associated with the data storage or retrieval request corresponding to the disk device error, whereby the defective storage device is repaired.

Abstract: In one embodiment, the invention provides a method for accessing a physical storage-device array comprising a plurality of storage devices. The method includes (1) obtaining at least one parameter from a profile selected from two or more profiles concurrently defining two or more virtual arrays, each profile defining (i) a different virtual array associated with a corresponding set of storage devices and (ii) a parameter set of one or more parameters used for accessing the virtual array; and (2) generating an instruction, based on the at least one parameter, for accessing, or disallowing access to, information in the virtual array defined by the selected profile, wherein a parameter in each the parameter set defined by each profile indicates whether two or more storage devices in the corresponding virtual array are degraded.

Abstract: The present invention provides a method and a system for cleaning furnace, including the steps of introducing a nitrogen gas flow into a cleaning agent tank to carry the cleaning agent, introducing the nitrogen gas carrying the cleaning agent into the furnace via a pipeline to clean the furnace; and generating a steam by mixing and igniting a hydrogen gas flow and an oxygen gas flow, and then introducing the steam into the furnace to clean the furnace. The method for cleaning furnace according to the invention can effectively remove metal and non-metal impurities deposits in a furnace of semiconductor oxidation furnace equipment.

Abstract: When a system detects that a transaction key in the SIM card (18) of a mobile station (36, 38) is non-existent or is no longer valid, the method automatically performs the following steps: generating in the application key server (42) a transaction key; encrypting the transaction key in the application server (42) using a transmission key generated when the SIM card was customized; transmitting the encrypted transition key via the SMS service centre (40) to the mobile station (36, 38); decrypting in the SIM card (18) the encrypted transaction key using the transmission key; and recording the decrypted transaction key in the SIM card storage. Furthermore, the method enables to select among several possible keys one key which corresponds both to a specific application and to a specific service provider.