Inventors:
Michael John Rieschl - St. Paul MN, US
Edward Stafford - North Oaks MN, US
Thomas J. Bechtold - Forest Lake MN, US
James R. McBreen - Shoreview MN, US
Assignee:
Unisys Corporation - Blue Bell PA
International Classification:
G06F 11/00
Abstract:
An apparatus for providing a computing environment in a computing system includes a first node, a second node, an operations server, and a communication link. The first node is capable of supporting a production computing environment and has a first disk storage. The second node is capable of supporting a second operational computing environment, independent of the production computing environment and has a second disk storage. The operations server manages the first and second node and can switch the production computing environment from the first node to the second node. The communications link allows communication between the first node, the second node, and the operations server. The second node can take over the production computing environment from the first node upon a failure of the first node by providing the second node with access to the first disk storage and rebooting the second node from the first disk storage. A method of switching a production computing environment from a first node, having a first disk storage, to a second node in the event of a failure on the first node includes determining if the first node had a failure and if the first node had a failure: reassigning ownership of the partition definition to the second node; restoring communications configuration on the second node; and booting the second node from the first disk storage.