A processor system includes a master processor that successively processes a plurality of tasks, a checker processor that successively processes at least one of the plurality of tasks, and a control circuit that performs control so that the checker processor operates when the master processor and the checker processor perform a lock-step operation, and the checker processor stops its operation when the master processor and the checker processor do not perform the lock-step operation, the lock-step operation being an operation in which each of the master and checker processors processes the same task, in which the control circuit performs control so that a period from when a task is processed by the lock-step operation to when another task is processed in the next lock-step operation is equal to or shorter than a maximum test period, the maximum test period being a test period acceptable to the processor system.

An apparatus has a processing pipeline (2) comprising an execute stage (30) and at least one front end stage (10), (20), (25) for controlling which micro operations are issued to the execute stage. The pipeline has an intra-core lockstep mode of operation in which the at least one front end stage (10), (20), (25) issues micro operations for controlling the execute stage (30) to perform main processing and checker processing. The checker processing comprises redundant operations corresponding to associated main operations of at least part of the main processing. Error handling circuitry (200), (210) is responsive to the detection of a mismatch between information associated with given checker and main operations to trigger a recovery operation to correct an error and continue forward progress of the main processing.

A method and system are provided for spare capacity usage for critical redundancy in storage arrays. The method may include monitoring a Redundant Array of Independent Disks (RAID) array to determine whether one or more redundancy units are at a critical level. A redundancy unit may be in a critical level when an additional drive failure will result in loss of data from the redundancy unit. The method may further include identifying available regions in the RAID array which are not allocated to user data in response to determining that a particular redundancy unit is critical. The method may further include determining an available region for the particular redundancy unit, where the available region is in a drive of the RAID array that does not contain data of the particular redundancy unit. The method may further include storing a critical stripe in the available region.

An application may store data to a dataset comprising a plurality of volumes stored on a plurality of storage systems. The application may request a dataset image of the dataset, the dataset image comprising a volume image of each volume of the dataset. A dataset image manager operates with a plurality of volume image managers in parallel to produce the dataset image, each volume image manager executing on a storage system. The plurality of volume image managers respond by performing requested operations and sending responses to the dataset image manager in parallel. Each volume image manager on a storage system may manage and produce a volume image for each volume of the dataset stored to the storage system. If a volume image for any volume of the dataset fails, or a timeout period expires, a cleanup procedure is performed to delete any successful volume images.

Provided herein are an acceleration system and a driving method thereof. The acceleration system includes a configuration memory, and a plurality of processing units which receive works from the configuration memory, perform the received works, and output results of the performed works. Each of the processing units include an n (n is an integer of three or more) number of processing elements which generate an n number of results, and each of which receives one of the works, and a select module which selects, using a majority-vote system, one of the n number of generated results and generates a selected result.

A system for maintaining a two-site configuration for continuous availability over long distances may include a first computing site configured to execute a first instance associated with a priority workload, the first instance being designated as an active instance; a second computing site configured to execute a second instance of the priority workload, the second instance being designated as a standby instance; a software replication module configured to replicate a unit of work data associated with the priority workload from a first data object associated with the active instance to a second data object associated with the standby instance, and a hardware replication module configured to replicate an image from a first storage volume to a copy on a second storage volume, wherein the first storage volume is associated with the first computing site, and the second storage volume is associated with a third computing site.

A method of operating a storage system is provided. The method includes establishing a security context between a client and the storage system, the security context comprising a single ticket for multiple nodes within the storage system. The method includes distributing a first request to a first blade within the storage system and distributing a second request to a second blade within the storage system. The distributing the first request and the second request includes determining a node for handling the first request and the second request based on data within the single ticket.

A system is provided. The system includes a data storage system and a client device communicatively coupled to the data storage device. The client device includes a processing device to receive a data request directed to the data storage system, translate the data request to a backend protocol of the data storage system, and retrieve one or more portions of data from the data storage system based on the translated data request. In some embodiments, the processing device is a data processing unit of the client device dedicated to executing a protocol endpoint of the data storage system.

A system and method for monitoring processors operating in lockstep to detect mismatches in pending pipelined instructions being executed by the processors. A lockstep monitor implemented in hardware is provided to detect the mismatches in the pending pipelined instructions executing on the lockstep processors and to initiate an auto-recovery operation at the processors if a mismatch is detected.

A storage system is provided. The storage system includes a first storage cluster, the first storage cluster having a first plurality of storage nodes coupled together and a second storage cluster, the second storage cluster having a second plurality of storage nodes coupled together. The system includes an interconnect coupling the first storage cluster and the second storage cluster and a first pathway coupling the interconnect to each storage cluster. The system includes a second pathway, the second pathway coupling at least one fabric module within a chassis to each blade within the chassis.