Patent ID: 7962665

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for managing hardware indicators for a computer system, comprising: maintaining a respective condition indicator state for each condition indicator of a plurality of sets of condition indicators, each said set comprising a plurality of said condition indicators and associated with a respective hardware component of said computer system, each said condition indicator state being maintained independently of any other said condition indicator state of the respective said set, each said condition indicator having at least two possible states comprising an active state and an inactive state; and automatically setting a plurality of physical indicators to respective states according to the condition indicator states of said condition indicators, each said physical indicator comprising a physical device having an indicator state perceptible to a human user, each said physical indicator corresponding to a respective set of said plurality of sets of condition indicators, each said physical indicator having at least (N+1) possible states, wherein N is the number of condition indicators in the set of condition indicators with which the physical indicator is associated, the possible states comprising a state in which all condition indicators of the corresponding set are in an inactive state, and a respective state for each condition of the corresponding set being in an active state; wherein said computer system is partitioned into a plurality of logical partitions, each said partition being allocated a respective subset of resources of said computer system; wherein a respective set of virtual indicators is associated with each of at least some of said condition indicators, each virtual indicator being associated with a respective partition, and wherein a state of a condition indicator with which a set of virtual indicators is associated is derived as a function of the states of the virtual indicators of the respective set of virtual indicators; and wherein respective processes executing in each partition can access only the virtual indicators associated with the respective partition and are unable to access the virtual indicators associated with other partitions or said condition indicators derived as a function of the states of the virtual indicators of respective sets of virtual indicators.