Patent ID: 6434630
Filing Date: 2002-08-13
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
In a computer system, in which a host microprocessor of a host computer dispatches input/output (I/O) requests to an I/O controller to initiate transfers of data between the host computer and a plurality of peripheral I/O devices, a method of processing dispatched I/O requests, comprising:(a) processing the dispatched I/O requests by transferring data between the peripheral I/O devices and a memory of the host computer; (b) concurrently with act (a), dynamically determining, based at least upon a number of unreported completed I/O requests and a number of pending I/O requests, whether to interrupt the host microprocessor; (c) when it is determined in act (b) that the host microprocessor is to be interrupted, interrupting the host microprocessor and reporting to the host microprocessor the unreported completed I/O requests; and (d) varying the number of unreported completed I/O requests reported to the host microprocessor in act (c) according to a current workload of the I/O controller.