Patent ID: 7877358

Claim:
A method of managing spare partition units in a partitionable computing device by a global management entity, the method comprising: determining whether a spare partition unit is required for replacement of a failing partition unit in a partition among a plurality of partitions of the partitionable computing device, the failing partition unit having a plurality of first memory blocks and a first processor; and when it is determined that a spare partition unit is required for replacement of the failing partition unit: (a) initiating replacement of the failing partition unit, the initiating comprising selecting the spare partition unit from a pool of spare partition units to replace the failing partition unit, the spare partition unit comprising a plurality of second memory blocks and a second processor; (b) passively migrating first data, the passive migration comprising transferring the first data from unmodified first memory blocks of the failing partition unit to memory blocks among the plurality of second memory blocks of the spare partition unit; (c) actively migrating second data by transferring the second data from modified first memory blocks of the failing partition unit to memory blocks among the plurality of second memory blocks of the spare partition unit while the partitionable computing device is quiesced; (d) transferring a state of the first processor of the failing partition unit to the second processor of the spare partition unit while the partitionable computing device is quiesced; and (e) cleaning up the partitionable computing device, the clean up comprising unquiescing the partitionable computing device.