Patent ID: 6154787
Filing Date: 2000-11-28
Classification: G06F

Abstract:
An apparatus for the automated management of peripheral devices of a data processing complex, the data processing complex having one or more data processing systems and one or more peripheral devices comprising:a. shared device manager means for coordinating the management of shared peripheral devices;b. grouping means within said shared device manager means for organizing the peripheral devices assigned to a host system into one or more pools of shared devices;c. notification means by which a requesting data processing system issues a request to said shared device manager means that an additional resource of said peripheral devices is required;d. allocation means by which said shared device manager means receives said request from said notification means, selects one or more peripheral devices from said pools, and allocates the selected peripheral devices to the requesting data processing system;e. configuration means by which said shared device manager means automatically assigns the selected peripheral devices to the requesting data processing system; andf. wherein said data processing complex further comprises one or more Unisys 2200 series managed systems, a UNIX based Single Point Operations (SPO) Server, one or more large screen SPO display devices connected to said SPO Server via an Ethernet LAN, a TCP/IP network connecting said SPO Server and each of said managed systems, SPO Console software residing on said SPO Server to display, monitor and control the operation of said managed systems, Single Point Interface (SPI) software residing on one or more of said managed systems, connecting each of said managed systems with said SPO Console, one or more tape drives connected to said managed systems, Shared Tape Drive Manager (STDM) software running in a SPO Telnet session on said SPO Server, SPO Status software for dynamically representing which of said peripheral devices are assigned to which of said data processing systems, and Single Point Autoaction Message System (SP-AMS) software to process operator messages received from said managed systems.