Patent ID: 8140717

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for managing hardware indicators for a computer system, comprising: defining a plurality of logical partitions of said computer system; allocating to each of a plurality of said logical partitions a respective subset of hardware partitionable entities of said computer system, at least some said subsets being different; associating a respective hierarchical location code with each said partitionable entity, each said hierarchical location code specifying a physical hierarchical containment relationship of the respective partitionable entity; associating a respective said hierarchical location code with each hardware device of a plurality of hardware devices of said computer system, each said hardware device being associated with a respective physical indicator; responsive to a request on behalf of a process executing in a first logical partition of said plurality of logical partitions to access an indicator associated with a first hardware device of said plurality of hardware devices, (a) determining a subset of said plurality of hardware partitionable entities which are allocated to said first logical partition, (b) comparing the hierarchical location code of each partitionable entity of said subset with the hierarchical location code of said first hardware device to determine whether any partitionable entity of said subset is contained in said first hardware device, and (c) granting access to said indicator based on the results of (b).