Patent ID: 7941810

Claim:
A method comprising: transferring control of a system from an operating system to a firmware manager responsive to an event, wherein the event is a response to an imminent failure of or capacity change requirement applicable to a component of the system, the event specifying an action to be performed; determining, by the firmware manager, a length of time of a time slice for performing the action by a firmware handler; selecting, by the firmware manager, the firmware handler from a plurality of firmware handlers in response to determining the length of time of the time slice, the selecting based on the action to be performed as specified by the event and the capability of the firmware handler to perform the action; dispatching, by the firmware manager, the selected firmware handler to perform the action specified by the event; requesting, by the selected firmware handler, system-independent information about the action specified by the event; exchanging, in response to requesting the system-independent information regarding the event, the system-independent information between the firmware manager and the dispatched selected firmware handler to perform the action; performing during the length of time of the time slice, by the firmware handler, the action specified by the event, wherein the action is performed in response to the exchanged system-independent information; and performing the following if the selected firmware handler does not finish performing the action within the time slice: saving a state regarding the event; scheduling a second time slice associated with the event; and terminating the selected firmware handler.