This application contains subject matter which is related to the subject matter of the following co-pending applications, each of which is assigned to the same assignee as this application, International Business Machines Corporation of Armonk, N.Y. Each of the below listed applications is hereby incorporated herein by reference in its entirety:
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/532,267, filed on Sep. 15, 2006, and entitled “Processor Memory Affay Having Memory Macros for Relocatable Storage Protect Keys”, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,590,899 issued Sep. 15, 2009.
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Per our z-series architecture, there exists a logical SP Key for every 4 KB of storage. Each SP key has 7 bits in length. An operation system manages system data access via these Keys. For example, in a system with 512 GB of Main Memory, needs 512 GB divided by 4 KB per SP Key which yields 128-million SP Keys. In prior machines, these Keys were packaged into separate SRAM or DRAM DIMMs. (
References that discuss store/access system data and keys also show system data and keys in a separate physical storage. Further in these references, the key regions are not relocatable and their sizes are not changeable. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,035,381 by Mita, Kimiko, et al, shows separate entities used to store key and system data. Their key address space is not dynamically relocatable because it shares part of system data address line. U.S. Pat. No. 5,787,309, by Greenstein, Paul Gregory, et al, expresses an idea to protect key storage blocks in system virtual memory, but it does not address how the key and system data are in physical storage. U.S. Pat. No. 6,883,077, of Kimura, Hiroaki, et al, implies that a separate storage was used for keys.
The shortcomings of the prior art are overcome and additional advantages are provided through the provision of a configuration that stores data and storage protection keys in the same physical storage. The key region can be configured dynamically so its start location and size can be altered according to system needs. The SP keys have different and stronger ECC protection to improve RAS. Commonality of memory subsystems with other server systems that do not use keys is achieved as well.
System and computer program products corresponding to the above-summarized methods are also described and claimed herein.
Additional features and advantages are realized through the techniques of the present invention. Other embodiments and aspects of the invention are described in detail herein and are considered a part of the claimed invention. For a better understanding of the invention with advantages and features, refer to the description and to the drawings.
As a result of the invention, technically we have achieved a solution which improves Reliability, Availability and Serviceability (RAS), achieves design commonality and cost/performance objective, provides great flexibility in SP keys/data design.
The subject matter which is regarded as the invention is particularly pointed out and distinctly claimed in the claims at the conclusion of the specification. The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention are apparent from the following detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:
The detailed description explains the preferred embodiments of the invention, together with advantages and features, by way of example with reference to the drawings.
In the prior art arrangement of
As opposed to the above described separated fixed/non-moveable memory physical location, to SP data in accordance with the present invention firmware can allocate any region within the physical storage to Storage Protection keys by using a configuration array which maps absolute addresses into physical addresses. This special SP key region is fully configurable, that can be allocated in any area within physical storage and can vary in size depending on the size of system main memory.
As shown in
In a computer system, key fails are in general more critical than system data failures. For this reason SP keys in the key region are protected by a different ECC scheme than the regular system data in the rest of the physical storage. In z9-109 server system, the SP key ECC uses triple detect and double correct matrix as compared to parity protection used in prior designs. As shown in
With this invention, commonality is achieved with computer systems that do not have SP Keys. In the prior designs, separate DIMMs were dedicated to hold keys. The memory components that can hold keys were not compatible with generic memory design. With the key storage method introduced above, systems that do not require keys can share the same type of memory components as those that do.
System RAS is also enhanced by this design. In prior design, any failure in the key DIMM portion of memory subsystem disables the entire memory subsystem. With the new method, the key region can be relocated into a new region, if the region that holds keys have excessive error rate. The bad region can then be marked as unavailable so it will not be used again.
In the configuration of
In
The capabilities of the present invention can be implemented in software, firmware, hardware or some combination thereof.
As one example, one or more aspects of the present invention can be included in an article of manufacture (e.g., one or more computer program products) having, for instance, computer usable media. The media has embodied therein, for instance, computer readable program code means for providing and facilitating the capabilities of the present invention. The article of manufacture can be included as a part of a computer system or sold separately.
Additionally, at least one program storage device readable by a machine, tangibly embodying at least one program of instructions executable by the machine to perform the capabilities of the present invention can be provided.
The flow diagrams depicted herein are just examples. There may be many variations to these diagrams or the steps (or operations) described therein without departing from the spirit of the invention. For instance, the steps may be performed in a differing order, or steps may be added, deleted or modified. All of these variations are considered a part of the claimed invention.
While the preferred embodiment to the invention has been described, it will be understood that those skilled in the art, both now and in the future, may make various improvements and enhancements which fall within the scope of the claims which follow. These claims should be construed to maintain the proper protection for the invention first described.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20080071964 A1 | Mar 2008 | US |