Patent ID: 6691257
Filing Date: 2004-02-10
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
A fault-tolerant maintenance bus protocol for communicating between a command module located on a parent maintenance bus and a plurality of subsystem components joined together on a child maintenance bus, wherein the child maintenance bus is interconnected to a bridge assembly that directs messages formatted in the protocol between the subsystem components and the command module through the bridge, the protocol comprising:a command message structure that uniquely addresses the bridge assembly, and that includes a command string, a command data string for communicating with one of the subsystem components, a tag uniquely identifying a packet, and a command error-checking string; and a response message structure that uniquely addresses the command module, and that includes error and status strings with respect to execution of the command message, the error string including an error code for identifying a specific error, the response message structure further including a response data string for communicating with the command module, and a response error-checking string.