Patent ID: 7730205

Claim:
A method for sharing an input device across a plurality of computing platforms, comprising: asserting a first System Management Interrupt (SMI) at a first processor included in a first server blade; switching an execution mode of the first processor included in the first server blade to a System Management Mode (SMM) in response to the first SMI; in response to the first processor entering the SMM, initiating an out-of-band (OOB) communications channel between the first server blade and a second server blade, wherein initiating the OOB communications channel includes asserting a second SMI on a second processor included in the second server blade; switching an execution mode of the second processor to the SMM in response to the second SMI; routing input data generated at the first server blade to the second server blade over the OOB communications channel, said input data and said first SMI generated in response to receiving an input signal produced by an input device coupled to the first server blade; and providing the input data to an operating system running on the second server blade, wherein routing input data to the first and second server blades and providing the input data to the operating system are performed via a first firmware and a second firmware on the first and second server blades, respectively, wherein the first and second firmware utilize an Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI) framework.