Patent ID: 7613949
Filing Date: 2009-11-03
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
1. A computer-implemented method of isolating failures in a system, comprising: a) receiving reports of multiple faults occurring within a unit, and storing the faults in a fault table for the unit, the fault table being stored on a storage device; b) utilizing a processor to perform a linear search of the fault table for the unit to identify one of the multiple faults that first appears in the fault table; c) determining that the identified fault is a first-occurring fault that is a source of a failure within the unit; repeating steps a through c for multiple units in the system to thereby identify a first-occurring fault for each of the multiple units; obtaining a primary priority value for each of the first-occurring faults; identifying the first-occurring fault with a greatest obtained primary priority value as the source of the failure within the system; if the greatest primary priority value is obtained for multiple ones of the first-occurring faults, obtaining a timestamp for each of the multiple ones of the first-occurring faults; and, if only one first-occurring fault has an earliest obtained timestamp, identifying the one first-occurring fault as the source of the failure within the system.