JPH0612338A - Information processing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To test the interface with the main storage device of the other system without exerting any influence upon the on-line data transfer processing of one system of an input/output controller in the information processing system composed of double central processors, main storage devices, and input/output controllers. CONSTITUTION:On-line circuits 60 and 61 which perform on-line processes and test circuits 70 and 71 which perform test processes are provided in the input/ output controllers 30 and 31. While the input/output controller 30 of the system 0 performs the on-line processing to the main storage device 20 of its system through the on-line circuit 60, the test circuit 70 performs read/write access to the main storage device 21 of the system 1 to test the interface between its input/output controller 30 and the main storage device 21 of the other system.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an information processing system, and more particularly to an information processing system having a dual system including a central processing unit, a main storage unit, an input / output control unit, and a bus commonly connecting these units. .

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In such a duplex system, there are the following two methods for carrying out an operation test between an online operating system input / output control device and an online non-operating main memory device.

(1) A method of inputting / outputting from a central processing unit of an online non-operating system to / from a register in an input / output control unit of an online operating system and confirming only a bus connection state.

(2) Temporarily suspending the online operation,
By the instruction from the central processing unit of the online non-operation system,
A method in which an input / output control device performs read / write of input / output data to a main storage device of an online non-operation system.

The above method (1) has a drawback that the input / output control unit of the online operation system becomes the bus master and cannot confirm the data transfer operation with respect to the main storage device of the online non-operation system.

In the above method (2), it is necessary to suspend and stop the online operation, and if a failure such as no response occurs during the test, the online stop time becomes long and the system may be down. However, there is a drawback that the reliability of the system is reduced.

A method of not performing any test is also conceivable. In this case, however, when a device which has not been checked for normality is incorporated into the system and a non-responsive fault occurs, In addition, there is a drawback in that the online stoppage time becomes long, which may lead to a system down, which also lowers the reliability of the system.

[0008]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, the present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks of the prior art, and the purpose of the present invention is to have no influence on the online operation of its own system. An object of the present invention is to provide an information processing system capable of performing an interface operation test between a main storage device of a system and an input / output control device of its own system.

[0009]

According to the present invention, a first central processing unit,
A first system comprising a first main memory, a first input / output device, a first bus to which these devices are commonly connected, a second central processing unit, a second main memory, 2 I / O devices,
A second bus composed of a second bus to which these devices are commonly connected.
And an information processing system having a dual configuration, wherein each of the first and second input / output control devices is capable of online access to both main storage devices of its own system and other systems. And a test means capable of performing test access to both the main memory device of the own system and the main memory device of the other system, and while the online memory accesses the main memory device of the own system, the main memory of the other system is stored by the test means. An information processing system is obtained which is characterized in that a test access to a device is made.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of this embodiment. First
The central processing unit (CPU) 10 of the system
M) 20, input / output control unit (BIU) 30, and bus 40 are commonly connected. The bus 40 is connected to the input / output control device (BIU) 31 of the second system, and the input / output control device 30 of the first system is connected to the input / output device (IO) 50.

Similarly, the central processing unit 11 of the second system is commonly connected to the main storage device 21, the input / output control device 31 and the bus 41. The bus 41 is the input / output control device 3 of the first system.
0, and the input / output control device 31 of the second system is connected to the input / output device 51.

Now, the first system will be called the 0 system, and the second system will be called the 1 system. In the 0-system input / output control device 30, a circuit (ONL) 60 for performing online processing and a test circuit (TEST) 70 for performing a test between the input / output control device 30 and the main memory 21 of the other system are provided. It is provided.
Similarly, in the 1-system input / output control device 31, a circuit 61 that performs online processing and a test circuit 71 that performs a test between the input / output control device 31 and the main memory device 20 of another system are provided. .

FIG. 2 is a concept showing access to the main storage device from the 0-system input / output control device 30 when it is confirmed that all the devices of both the 0-system system and the 1-system system are normal. It is a figure. This access operation is called an online operation.

The input / output control unit 30 in the 0-system input / output control unit 30 serves as a bus master of the bus 40 and the bus 41 by the function of the circuit 60 for performing online processing. Write access to the main storage device 20 and the main storage device 21 of the system to write data. Similarly, read access is performed to the main storage device 20 and the main storage device 21 of both systems via the bus 40 and the bus 41 to read data. This keeps the main memory of both systems the same.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram showing access from the input / output control device 30 to the main storage device when the system 1 device fails. The online operation at this time is performed by the input / output control device 3
This means that the access from 0 to the main storage device 20 is performed. By the operation of the online processing circuit 60 in the 0-system input / output control device 30, the input / output control device 30 becomes a bus master of the bus 40, writes data to the 0-system main storage device 20 via the bus 40, and Data is read from the 0-system main storage device 20.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram when the read / write access test is simultaneously performed on the main storage device 21 of the 1-system while the 0-system input / output control device 30 performs online processing for the self-system. .

The online transfer data of the main memory device 20 is exchanged via the bus 40 by the function of the circuit 60 for performing online processing in the 0-system input / output control device 30.

At the same time, when the test start instruction is generated, the test circuit 70 in the input / output control device 30 operates in response to the generation, and the operation causes the input / output control device 30 to become the bus master of the bus 41. Read / write access for testing to the main memory device 21 of the other system becomes possible.

At this time, a diagnostic area in which diagnostic data is stored is set in advance in the main storage device 21, and the test circuit 70 makes a read access to this diagnostic area. Then, after that, the test circuit 70 similarly performs a write access to the diagnostic area in the main memory device 21 in order to write the inverted data of the diagnostic data.

At this time, the reason for writing the inverted data of the diagnostic data is as follows. In other words, since the diagnostic area is secured in the main storage device, it is not allowed to increase the capacity of this diagnostic area. Therefore, because the diagnostic data is rewritten in this area (so-called overwriting), This is because it is possible to determine that a diagnosis has been made by reversing and writing the stored diagnosis data.

With the above processing, it is possible to carry out the diagnostic data transfer test from the 0-system input / output control device 30 to the 1-system main storage device 21 while performing the online processing in the 0-system. When the test is completed normally, both systems can shift to a normal operating state as shown in FIG.

[0023]

As described above, according to the present invention, since the data transfer test of the other system can be performed in parallel during the online processing of the own system, it is possible to realize a highly reliable duplex system. The effect is that

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a system block diagram showing a configuration of an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is an input / output control device 3 for system 0 when both systems are normal.
FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram showing an access mode from 0 to the main storage devices 20 and 21.

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram showing an access state from the input / output control device 30 to the main storage device 20 when the 1-system failure occurs.

FIG. 4 is a conceptual diagram of a case where a 0-system input / output control device 30 is performing online processing and a 1-system main storage device 21 is accessed for testing.

[Explanation of symbols]

 10, 11 Central processing unit 20, 21 Main storage device 30, 31 Input / output control device 40, 41 Bus 50, 51 Input / output device 60, 61 Online circuit 70, 71 Test circuit

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A first system comprising a first central processing unit, a first main memory unit, a first input / output unit, a first bus to which these units are commonly connected, and a second system. Central processing unit,
A dual-structured information processing system having a second main memory device, a second input / output device, and a second system composed of a second bus to which these devices are commonly connected. Each of the second input / output control devices has online means for online access to both main memory devices of its own system and other system and test access to both main memory devices of its own system and other system. During the access to the main storage device of the own system by the online means,
An information processing system, characterized in that the test means makes a test access to a main storage device of another system. 2. The first and second main storage devices each have a diagnostic area in which predetermined diagnostic data is stored, and the test means performs read access to the diagnostic area, and this read The information processing system according to claim 1, wherein the diagnostic data is inverted to write access to the diagnostic area.