JPH0114612B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Application of the Invention] The present invention relates to an information processing system, particularly a system comprising a large number of processing devices (arithmetic processing device, input/output processing device, main storage device, file processing device, etc.) The present invention relates to an information processing system that facilitates the implementation of fault tests.

[Prior Art] Generally, an information processing system has a large number of processing devices, such as an arithmetic processing unit, an input/output processing unit, a main storage device, a file processing device, and other processing devices, depending on the requirements of the target business. It is configured by connecting multiple units.

If a failure occurs in some of the above-mentioned processing units in such an information processing system, the failure processing unit is disconnected from the system to enable degraded operation or alternative operation, so that the effect of the failure is not affected by the entire system. Care has been taken to ensure that it does not affect operations as much as possible. Then, when the above-mentioned faulty processing device has been repaired, it is reincorporated into the system and restored.

However, although the method described above is an excellent method for preventing system failures from interrupting system operations as much as possible, it is very inconvenient when performing failure tests on such systems to confirm system operation. It is. In other words, when a fault test is performed by generating a simulated fault, the processing unit is disconnected from the system due to the simulated fault, so it is not possible to continuously observe the system operation and confirm the fault handling operation. There is.
Therefore, there is an inconvenience in that an operation for inhibiting the above-mentioned disconnection operation must be performed separately manually.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

The problem to be solved by the present invention, in other words, the purpose of the present invention is to provide an information processing system in which a service processor for controlling the system configuration is added with a function to improve the above-mentioned drawbacks.

[Means for solving problems]

The information processing system of the present invention has a connection part for connecting a plurality of information processing apparatuses at the same time, and holds control data for incorporating or disconnecting each of the plurality of information processing apparatuses connected to the connection part. a system controller having a configuration control register;
a configuration information storage register that holds system configuration information set in advance or system configuration information including failure information when there is a faulty information processing device among the plurality of information processing devices; To prevent the contents of the configuration information storage register from being rewritten and lost due to a failure that occurs while the information processing device is operating or performing a diagnostic test. , a service processor including a configuration information save register for saving the contents of the configuration information register, and saves the contents of the configuration information save register to the configuration when the failure is recovered or when necessary in the diagnostic test. It is configured to write to an information storage register.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, an information processing system according to the present invention will be explained with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing one embodiment of the present invention. In the same figure, the information processing system connects a first processing device 3, a second processing device 4, a third processing device 5, and a fourth processing device 6 to connecting lines 103a and 10, respectively.
It consists of a system control device 2 and a service processor 1 connected by 3b, 103c and 103d.

The service processor 1 includes a control unit 11 that sends out system configuration information 100 of the information processing system;
It has a configuration information storage register 13 that inputs the system configuration information 100 described above and sends out system configuration data 101, and a configuration information save register 12 that saves the contents of the configuration information register 13 described above.

The system control device 2 inputs the above system configuration data 101 and controls the first to fourth processing devices 3 to 6, respectively, with control data 102a, 102b,
102c and 102d, and the control data 102a, 102 described above.
b, 102c and 102d, the first to fourth processing devices 3 to 6 are disconnected from or assembled into each other, respectively.

FIG. 2 shows an example of a procedure for conducting a failure test of such an information processing system. In the same figure, when a pseudo failure occurs in the first processing device 3, the relational operation with another processing device (second processing device 4 in the figure) and the service processor 1 is explained.

First, the first processing device 3 executes process 21 to instruct the service processor 1 to save system configuration information. And service processor 1 processes 2
2 to save the contents of the configuration information storage register 13 to the configuration information save register 12.

Next, when a failure occurs in process 24 in accordance with the pseudo failure instruction in process 23, the service processor 1 executes process 25 and sets the above failure information in the configuration information storage register 13. At the same time, the second processing device 4 is notified of the occurrence of the failure, so the second processing device 4 executes process 26 and requests disconnection of the first processing device 3. This disconnection operation is performed by the configuration control register 14 which receives the system configuration data 101 sent out in accordance with the fault information set in the configuration information storage register 13.

Subsequently, when the second processing device 4 requests the installation of the first processing device 3 through process 27, the service processor 1 has the above failure information set in the configuration information storage register 13 through process 28. be notified that the above incorporation is not possible. In response, the second processing device 4 issues a system configuration information recovery request in process 29, and the service processor 1 loads the contents of the configuration information save register 12 into the configuration information storage register 13 in process 30. to restore system configuration information. Furthermore, when the second processing device 4 requests again the installation of the first processing device through process 31, the service processor 1 instructs the installation through process 32, and executes the installation through process 33.

In the above, the first processing device 3 and the second processing device 4
Although the operation of the failure test has been described for the above, it can be executed in the same manner for other processing devices. For example, in FIG. 2, it is perfectly valid to rewrite the first processing device 3 as the second processing device 4 and the second processing device 4 as the third processing device 5.

Furthermore, although the case where there are four processing devices has been described above, the information processing system can be configured in the same manner as described above even if there are five or more processing devices.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above in detail, according to the information processing system of the present invention, the recovery of system configuration information can be instructed and executed by software, so failure tests can be reliably executed without human intervention and the system can be restored. This has the effect of allowing you to check the failure handling status.

Furthermore, since the maintainability of the system is improved and the operating rate can be expected to be improved, there is also the effect of increasing the reliability of the system users.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an information processing system according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a processing procedure for a fault test in the embodiment of FIG. 1... Service processor, 2... System control device, 3-6... First to fourth processing devices, 12...
Configuration information save register, 13...Configuration information storage register, 14...Configuration control register, 15...Connection section.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A configuration that has a connection part that connects a plurality of information processing apparatuses at the same time and holds control data for incorporating or disconnecting each of the plurality of information processing apparatuses connected to the connection part. A system control device having a control register, and holding system configuration information set in advance or system configuration information including failure information when there is a faulty information processing device among the plurality of information processing devices. A configuration information storage register that is configured to perform a configuration information storage register, and a configuration information storage register whose contents before the failure occurs due to a failure that occurs while the plurality of information processing devices are operating or during a diagnostic test. and a service processor including a configuration information save register that saves the contents of the configuration information register to prevent it from being rewritten and lost, and the configuration information is saved when the failure is recovered or when necessary in the diagnostic test. An information processing system characterized in that the contents of an information save register are written to the configuration information storage register.