Patent ID: 7356686

Claim:
A distributed computer system comprising: a plurality of cells each including a CPU, a memory, and a set of range registers used for resource routing, said plurality of cells including at least one spare cell that is not activated, and remainder of said cells being activated to provide an online system such that the at least one spare cell is not part of said online system; a first module programmed to store a memory region of said online system with initial values to be set into said spare cell, in response to booting said online system; a service processor storing a first memory of said spare cell with a copy of said initial values stored in said memory region, in response to a request for activating said spare cell; and a second module programmed to put said initial values obtained from said copy into a first set of range registers of said spare cell, wherein said second module is programmed to generate a grant for activating said spare cell after putting said initial values, and wherein said service processor activates said spare cell in response to said grant received from said second module without rebooting said online system, wherein said first module is further programmed: to provide a virtual PCI configuration space within said memory region onto which said first set of range registers of said spare cell are virtually mapped, to generate a destination address from a PCI configuration address destined for said first set of range registers of said spare cell, and to put said initial values into a destination identified by said destination address of said virtual PCI configuration space.