Charles Edward Graham

US Patent:

20130191821, Jul 25, 2013

Filed:

Mar 12, 2013

Appl. No.:

13/796111

Inventors:

International Business Machines Corporation - Armonk NY, US
Charles S. Graham - Rochester MN, US
Andrew T. Koch - Rochester MN, US
Kyle A. Lucke - Oronoco MN, US
Naresh Nayer - Rochester MN, US
Randal C. Swanberg - Round Rock TX, US

Assignee:

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES CORPORATION - Armonk NY

International Classification:

G06F 9/445

US Classification:

717171

Abstract:

A firmware update process for a self-virtualizing IO resource such as an SRIOV adapter is incorporated into a platform firmware update process to systematically update the resource firmware in a manner that is for the most part transparent to the logical partitions sharing the adapter. In particular, resource firmware associated with a self-virtualizing IO resource is bundled with firmware for at least one adjunct partition associated with that self-virtualizing IO resource within a common firmware image so that, upon restart of the adjunct partition to use the updated firmware image, the resource firmware is also updated, with a logical partition that uses the self-virtualizing IO resource maintained in an active state during the restart, and without requiring the self-virtualizing IO resource to be deconfigured from the logical partition.