Patent ID: 6988226

Claim:
A method for generating and responding to alarms in a computer system: providing a plurality of protection domains in a system space including a system protection domain and a plurality of partition protection domains, the system protection domain including a core operating system, each partition protection domain providing a spatial and temporal partition including a partition operating system and a partition user application; generating an alarm in one of the partition protection domains; transmitting the alarm to the core operating system via the partition operating system in said one of the partitions; accessing an alarm dispatcher in the system protection domain via the core operating system; determining, via the alarm dispatcher, an alarm level of the alarm, wherein the alarm level is one of a system alarm level and a partition alarm level; if the alarm level is the system alarm level, dispatching the alarm to a system alarm handler in the system protection domain via the core operating system; and if the alarm level is the partition alarm level, dispatching the alarm to a partition alarm handler in said one of the partitions.