Patent ID: 8656149

Claim:
A method comprising: determining, by a bootloader process executing on a service management processor (SMP) subsystem for a server device, subsequent to the SMP subsystem having replaced a faulty SMP subsystem for the server device, the SMP subsystem having same hardware as the faulty SMP subsystem, the SMP subsystem having never been previously booted, whether an initialization flag stored within non-volatile memory of the SMP subsystem is set, the initialization flag corresponding to whether a full cold initialization process of the SMP subsystem is to occur; in response to determining that the initialization flag has not been set; loading, by the bootloader process, an image stored in the non-volatile memory into volatile memory of the SMP subsystem, the image corresponding to processes properly running on the SMP subsystem after the SMP subsystem has booted, including a management process, such that the processes begin executing on the SMP subsystem, the image preloaded into the SMP subsystem, the image corresponding to processes previously running on the faulty SMP subsystem for the server device prior to failure of the faulty SMP subsystem; determining, by the management process, whether a hardware configuration change within the SMP subsystem has been made; and, in response to determining that the hardware configuration change has been made, setting the initialization flag and rebooting the SMP subsystem, by the management process, wherein the SMP subsystem is warm booted a first time power is applied to the SMP subsystem without ever having been cold booted such that the SMP subsystem runs the processes previously running on the faulty SMP subsystem prior to the SMP subsystem having replaced the faulty SMP subsystem.