JPH0476135B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an information processing system, particularly an information processing system that is composed of a large number of processing devices (arithmetic processing unit, input/output processing device, main storage device, file processing device, etc.). The present invention relates to an information processing system that facilitates system failure testing.

[Conventional technology]

Generally, an information processing system consists of a large number of processing devices, such as an arithmetic processing unit, an input processing unit, a main storage device, a file processing device, and other processing devices, each connected one or more depending on the requirements of the target business. has been done.

If a failure occurs in some of the processing units mentioned above in such an information processing system, the faulty 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 repair process for the faulty processing device is completed, 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 the 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 for holding system configuration information set in advance or system configuration information including failure information when there is a failure information processing apparatus among the plurality of information processing apparatuses; Configuration information that prevents the contents of the configuration information storage register before the occurrence of the failure from being rewritten due to a failure that occurs when a plurality of information processing devices are operating or performing a diagnostic test. and a service processor including an update suppression unit, and stores the configuration information as necessary even if a failure occurs while the plurality of information processing devices are operating or a diagnostic test is being performed. It is configured so that the contents of the register are not updated.

〔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 connection lines 104a and 10, respectively.
4b, 104c and 104d, and a service processor 1.

The service processor 1 includes a control unit 11 that sends out system configuration information 100 of the information processing system;
A configuration information storage register 14 that inputs the above system configuration information 100 and sends out system configuration data 102, and prevents the above system configuration information 100 from being input to the configuration information storage register 14 as necessary (for details, see (described later); a configuration information update suppression unit 12 that sends an update suppression signal 101;
A gate circuit 1 that turns on/off passage of the system configuration information 100 according to the update inhibition signal 101 described above.
3.

The system control device 2 inputs the above-mentioned system configuration data 102 and controls data 103a, 103b, which controls the first to fourth processing devices 3 to 6, respectively.
103c and 103d, and the above control data 103a, 103.
b, 103c and 103d, the connecting portions 16 are used to disconnect or incorporate the first to fourth processing devices 3 to 6, 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 suppress updates of the system configuration information. Then, the service processor 1 executes process 22 and causes the configuration information update suppression unit 12 to send out an update suppression signal 101.

Next, when a failure occurs in process 24 in accordance with the instruction to generate a pseudo failure in process 23, service processor 1 executes process 25 and sends out system configuration information 100 including the above failure.
3, the contents of the configuration information storage register 14 are not updated because the update is inhibited by the update suppression signal 101 described above. 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 directly via the configuration control register 15 of the system controller 2.

Subsequently, when the second processing device 4 requests the installation of the first processing device 3 through process 27, the service processor 1 sends the contents of the configuration information storage register 14 to the configuration control register 15 through process 28. Instruct the above incorporation. Then, in step 30, the incorporation is executed. Furthermore, the second processing device 4
When the service processor 1 requests cancellation of the update suppression of the system configuration information in process 29, the service processor 1 stops sending out the update suppression signal 101 sent by the configuration information update suppression unit 12 in process 31.

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, updating of system configuration information due to the occurrence of a failure can be suppressed by software, so failure tests can be reliably executed without human intervention. This has the effect of allowing you to check the failure handling status of the system.

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 the drawing]

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 update suppression unit, 14...Configuration information storage register, 15...Configuration control register, 16...Connection unit.

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 for setting the system configuration information in the configuration control register at the time of initial setting and dynamic reconfiguration of the information processing device; and a configuration information storage register for setting the system configuration information in the configuration control register at the time of initial setting and dynamic reconfiguration of the information processing device; and a service processor including a configuration information update inhibiting unit that is set during a diagnostic test in order to prevent the contents of the configuration information storage register before the occurrence of the failure from being rewritten due to the failure that has occurred. An information processing system characterized in that, even if a failure occurs during a diagnostic test of the plurality of information processing apparatuses, the contents of the configuration information storage register before the failure occurs are retained.