Patent ID: 7225235

Claim:
A modular computer system comprising: an integral console concentrator configured to provide a common point of access to consoles in modules of the computer system; wherein the console concentrator is configured to provide access for multiple users at a time to each of the consoles; wherein the console concentrator includes: a security unit configured to check and enforce user permissions for controlling console accesses; and a write lock unit configured to apply and control write locks for providing write access to each of the consoles to at most one user at a time and read-only access to multiple users at a time; wherein the write lock unit is configured to grant and take away write access to a console based on the priority of the access, wherein if a write access to one of the consoles is taken from a given user, the write lock unit is configured to notify the user of the move to a read-only mode and also which user was granted the write access.