Shared resources in a docked mobile environment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9678792-B2
Application number	US-201313777007-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 26, 2013
Priority date	Feb 14, 2012
Publication date	Jun 13, 2017
Grant date	Jun 13, 2017

Abstract

Sharing resources in a docked mobile environment comprises maintaining a set of execution tasks within a first data handling system having a system dock interface to physically couple to a second data handling system and assigning a task to be executed by the second data handling system while the two systems are physically coupled. The described method further comprises detecting a physical decoupling of the first and second data handling systems and displaying an execution result of the task via a first display element of the first data handling system in response to such a detection.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method performed by a first data handling system, the method comprising:
maintaining, at the first data handling system, a task list comprising a first set of tasks for the first data handling system;
detecting a physical coupling of the first data handling system with a second data handling system via a system dock interface;
in response to the physical coupling:
determining processing capabilities and utilization constraints of the first data handling system and of the second data handling system, the processing capabilities and utilization constraints of the second data handling system based, at least in part, on the second data handling system capability to interleave execution of a portion of the first set of tasks into a second set of tasks for the second data handling system;
assigning one or more tasks of the first set of tasks of the first data handling system to be executed by the second data handling system, wherein assignment of the first set of tasks is based, at least in part, on the processing capabilities and utilization constraints of the first and second data handling systems;
updating the task list to indicate to which of the first data handling system or the second data handling system the one or more tasks of the first set of tasks is assigned;
after generating of an execution result for a corresponding one of the first set of tasks, updating an execution completion status in the task list to indicate a completion of the corresponding one of the first set of tasks;

detecting a physical decoupling of the first data handling system and the second data handling system via the system dock interface; and
in response to the physical decoupling:
determining, by the first data handling system, that the execution completion status does not indicate the completion of the one or more of the tasks of the first set of tasks that was assigned to the second data handling system; and
re-assigning the one or more tasks, without the execution completion status indicating the completion, to the first data handling system.

2. The method of claim 1 , further comprising assigning one or more tasks of the first set of tasks to be executed in parallel by the first data handling system and the second data handling system while the first data handling system is physically coupled to the second data handling system.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining processing capabilities of a third data handling system that is physically coupled with one selected from a group consisting of the first data handling system and the second data handling system.

4. The method of claim 3 , further comprising assigning one or more other tasks from the first set of tasks to be executed by one or more selected from a group consisting of the first data handling system, the second data handling system, and the third data handling system while the first, second, and third data handling systems are physically coupled, wherein assignment of the first set of tasks is based, at least in part, on the processing capabilities of the first, second, and third data handling systems.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising storing information indicating the determined processing capabilities and utilization constraints for the second data handling system.

6. The method of claim 5 , wherein the information indicates at least one of:
a number of processors;
a number of processing cores;
a processor operating frequency;
a processor cache size;
an instruction set architecture; and
a memory size.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein the detection of the physical decoupling of the first data handling system and the second data handling system comprises determining that an interrupt indicates the physical decoupling of the first data handling system and the second data handling system.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein updating the execution completion status in the task list to indicate the completion includes indicating a status selected from a group consisting of an execution resulting in a success; an execution resulting in an error; and pending execution.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein the one or more tasks that do not have indicators indicating completion are re-assigned after a predetermined time period has elapsed subsequent to detection of the physical decoupling of the first data handling system and the second data handling system.

10. The method of claim 1 , wherein the assignment of the first set of the one or more tasks is further based on the processing utilization constraints determined using a token system wherein the second data handling system maintains one or more tokens representing available processing cycles of the second data handling system available for execution of one or more of the first set of tasks.

Assignees

• IBM

Inventors

• Doyle Ronald Patrick
• Kaminsky David Louis

Classifications

• G06F9/5044 Primary

  considering hardware capabilities · CPC title

• G06F2209/501

  Performance criteria · CPC title

• G06F9/50

  Allocation of resources, e.g. of the central processing unit [CPU] · CPC title

• G06F9/4881 Primary

  Scheduling strategies for dispatcher, e.g. round robin, multi-level priority queues · CPC title

• G06F9/46

  Multiprogramming arrangements · CPC title