Victor K PeconeLyons, CO

6477593, Nov 5, 2002

Jun 11, 1998

09/096033

Farzad Khosrowpour - Lyons CO
Victor Key Pecone - Lyons CO

Adaptec, Inc. - Milpitas CA

G06F 1300

710100, 361790

An I/O bridge system comprises a motherboard including first and second busses, e. g. , first and second PCI busses. A I/O bridge circuit is connected between the first and second busses and operative to communicate therebetween. A first connector is disposed on a side of the motherboard and has the first bus provided thereat. A second connector is disposed on the side of the motherboard, positioned laterally adjacent the first connector and has the second bus provided thereat. An interconnected stack of daughterboards is disposed on the motherboard and connected to the first and second connectors of the motherboard. A daughterboard of the interconnected stack includes an I/O bridge circuit connected to one of the first bus or the second bus depending on the position of the daughterboard in the interconnected stack. The I/O bridge circuit is operative to communicate between one of the motherboard busses and a communications channel such as a Fibre Channel.

6839788, Jan 4, 2005

Sep 28, 2001

09/967027

Victor Key Pecone - Lyons CO, US

Dot Hill Systems Corp. - Carlsbad CA

G06F 1300
G06F 1340
G06F 1200

710305, 710300, 710306, 714 25, 711100, 711141, 370402

A network storage controller for transferring data between a host computer and a storage device, such as a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID), described. The network storage controller includes at least one channel interface module which is adapted to be connected to the host computer and storage device. The network storage controller also includes at least one controller memory module, attached to a passive backplane. The controller memory module communicates with the channel interface module. In applications where redundancy is required, at least two controller memory modules and at least two channel interface modules are used. The controller memory modules may mirror data between one another using the passive backplane and a shared communication path on the channel interface modules.

7062591, Jun 13, 2006

Sep 28, 2001

09/967126

Victor Key Pecone - Lyons CO, US

Dot Hill Systems Corp. - Carlsbad CA

G06F 13/36

710308, 710 22

A network storage controller for transferring data between a host computer and a storage device, such as a redundant array of inexpensive disks (RAID), is disclosed. The network storage controller includes at least one channel interface module which is adapted to be connected to the host computer and storage device. The channel interface module is connected to a passive backplane, and selectively transfers data between the host computer and storage device and the passive backplane. The network storage controller also includes at least one controller memory module, attached to the passive backplane. The controller memory module communicates with the channel interface module via the passive backplane, and processes and temporarily stores data received from the host computer or storage device. In applications where redundancy is required, at least two controller memory modules and at least two channel interface modules are used. The controller memory modules may mirror data between one another using the passive backplane and a shared communication path on the channel interface modules, thereby substantially avoiding the use of host or disk channels to mirror data.

7146448, Dec 5, 2006

Sep 21, 2004

10/946341

Ian Robert Davies - Longmont CO, US
Gene Maine - Longmont CO, US
Victor Key Pecone - Lyons CO, US

Dot Hill Systems Corporation - Carlsbad CA

G06F 13/00

710302, 710305, 710304, 711111, 714100

A storage controller configured to adopt orphaned I/O ports is disclosed. The controller includes multiple field-replaceable units (FRUs) that plug into a backplane having local buses. At least two of the FRUs have microprocessors and memory for processing I/O requests received from host computers for accessing storage devices controlled by the controller. Other of the FRUs include I/O ports for receiving the requests from the hosts and bus bridges for bridging the I/O ports to the backplane local buses in such a manner that if one of the processing FRUs fails, the surviving processing FRU detects the failure and responsively adopts the I/O ports previously serviced by the failed FRU to service the subsequently received I/O requests on the adopted I/O ports. The I/O port FRUs also include I/O ports for transferring data with the storage devices that are also adopted by the surviving processing FRU.

7278054, Oct 2, 2007

Apr 23, 2004

10/830875

Ian Robert Davies - Longmont CO, US
George Alexander Kalwitz - Mead CO, US
Victor Key Pecone - Lyons CO, US

Dot Hill Systems Corporation - Carlsbad CA

G06F 11/00
G06F 11/30

714 9, 714 12, 714 43

An apparatus is disclosed for deterministically performing active-active failover of redundant servers in response to a failure of a link on which each server provides a heartbeat to the other server. Each of the servers is configured to take over the identity of the other server on a common network in response to detecting a failure of the other server's link heartbeat. Each server provides a status indicator to a storage controller indicating whether the other server's link heartbeat stopped. The storage controller determines the link has failed if both of the status indicators indicate the other server's heartbeat stopped, and responsively kills one of the servers. The storage controller also receives a heartbeat directly from each server. If only one direct heartbeat stops when the status indicators indicate the link heartbeats stopped, then the storage controller detects one server has failed and inactivates the failed server.

7320083, Jan 15, 2008

Apr 23, 2004

10/831688

Ian Robert Davies - Longmont CO, US
George Alexander Kalwitz - Mead CO, US
Victor Key Pecone - Lyons CO, US

Dot Hill Systems Corporation - Carlsbad CA

G06F 11/00

714 3, 714 4

An apparatus and method for deterministically killing one of redundant servers on a common network is disclosed. The apparatus includes a chassis that encloses the servers and a storage controller, status indicators generated by the servers to the storage controller, and kill controls, generated by the storage controller to respective ones of the servers, each for killing a respective one of the servers. The status indicators and kill controls are wholly enclosed in the chassis. The kill controls deterministically disable the killed server on the network independently of the state of the server to be killed. That is, the server does not need to be able to respond to a command to be disabled on the network. In one embodiment, the kill controls comprise reset signals. After the storage controller deterministically kills one of the servers, the other server takes over the identity of the killed server on the network.

7330999, Feb 12, 2008

Apr 23, 2004

10/831689

Ian Robert Davies - Longmont CO, US
George Alexander Kalwitz - Mead CO, US
Victor Key Pecone - Lyons CO, US

Dot Hill Systems Corporation - Carlsbad CA

G06F 11/00
G06F 11/20

714 9, 714 10, 714 13

A network storage appliance integrates a plurality of servers and a plurality of storage controllers into a single chassis. The storage controllers control transfers of data between the servers and storage devices controlled by the storage controllers. The servers and storage controllers comprise a plurality of field replaceable units (FRUs) that plug into a backplane also enclosed in the chassis. The FRUs are redundant such that any one of the FRUs may fail without incurring loss of availability of the data stored on the storage devices. One of the storage controllers detects a failure of one of the servers and responsively kills the failed server. The failure may be a stopped heartbeat from the failed server. Additionally, one of the storage controllers detects a failure of a heartbeat link coupling the servers and responsively inactivates one of the servers to enable failover to the live server.

7334064, Feb 19, 2008

Apr 23, 2004

10/831690

Ian Robert Davies - Longmont CO, US
George Alexander Kalwitz - Mead CO, US
Victor Key Pecone - Lyons CO, US

Dot Hill Systems Corporation - Carlsbad CA

G06F 13/12

710 62, 710 74

An application server blade for an embedded storage appliance is disclosed. The blade includes a printed circuit board (PCB) with a connector for connecting to a chassis backplane including a local bus. Affixed on the PCB is a server, a portion of a storage controller, and an I/O link coupling the server and storage controller portion. The server transmits packets on the I/O link to the storage controller portion. The packets include commands to transfer data to a storage device controlled by the storage controller. The storage controller portion receives the packets from the server on the I/O link and forwards the commands on the backplane local bus to another portion of the storage controller affixed on a separate PCB also enclosed in the chassis. The blade also includes a removal mechanism for hot-replacement of the blade in the chassis. The blade architecture facilitates software reuse.