Patent ID: 7191275
Filing Date: 2007-03-13
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A method of managing hardware triggered hotplug operations of one or more input/output (I/O) cards of a computer system, comprising receiving hardware triggers, each of which relates to a hotplug operation to be carried out on an I/O card associated with a card slot, placing said hardware triggers in a queue, processing said queue of hardware triggers, processing one or more of said hardware triggers, by analysing a hardware trigger to determine the card slot to which said hardware trigger relates, consulting a hotplug operation policy to determine whether hotplug operations are enabled for said card slot, if hotplug operations are not enabled for said card slot, ignoring said hardware trigger, if hotplug operations are enabled for said card slot, querying said slot to determine whether it contains a card, if said card slot does not contain a card, ignoring said hardware trigger, if said card slot does contain a card, determining the nature of the hotplug operation of said hardware trigger, if said hotplug operation is a delete card hotplug operation or a suspend card hotplug operation, determining whether said card is essential or non-essential to said computer system, and ignoring said delete card hotplug operation or said suspend card hotplug operation when said card is essential, and performing said delete card hotplug operation or said suspend card hotplug operation when said card is non-essential, or if said hotplug operation is an add card hotplug operation or a resume card hotplug operation, performing said add card hotplug operation or said resume card hotplug operation.