IBM Assigned Two Patents

Determining the status of virtual storage in first memor
within OS and reserving resources
for use by augmenting OS

IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,336,055) developed by four co-inventors for a "determining the status of virtual storage in the first memory within the first operating system and reserving resources for use by augmenting operating system."

The co-inventors are Michel Henri Theodore Hack, Cortlandt Manor, NY, Stephen John Heisig, Tarrytown, NY, Joshua Wilson Knight III, Mohegan Lake, NY, and Gong Su, New York.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "A method for determining status of system resources in a computer system includes loading a first operating system into a first memory, wherein the first operating system discovers system resources and reserves a number of the system resources for use of an augmenting operating system, loading the augmenting operating system into a second memory reserved for the augmenting operating system by the first operating system, accessing the first memory from the augmenting operating system and obtaining data, running a process on the augmenting operating system to perform a computation using the data obtained from the first memory, and outputting the results of the computation using the system resources reserved for the augmenting operating system."

The patent application was filed on March 12, 2008 (12/046,840).

Stale track initialization in storage controller

IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, has been assigned a patent (8,332,581) developed by five co-inventors for a "stale track initialization in a storage controller."

The co-inventors are Susan K. Candelaria, Kurt A. Lovrien, AZ, James D. Marwood Jr., Beth A. Peterson, and Kenneth W. Todd, Tucson, AZ.

The abstract of the patent published by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office states: "Deleting a data volume from a storage system and freeing its storage space to make it available to be allocated to a new volume is accomplished by only zeroing associated metadata for the tracks contained in the freed storage space which is then reused in a new volume allocation and an attempt is made by the new volume to read a first record R0 of a track. A determination is made as to whether a first user record R1 of the volume is stale If the first record R0 is stale. If record R1 is stale, the metadata or track format description (TFD) is modified whereby the entire track is indicated as being uninitialized and the first record R0 is uninitialized. If record R1 is not stale, the first record R0 is regenerated and the TFD is modified whereby the entire track is indicated as being initialized."

The patent application was filed on Aug. 13, 2007 (11/837,833).