A surgical instrument for creating an anastomosis includes a housing, a handle extending from the housing and a fastener support member extending distally from the housing. The fastener support member is configured and dimensioned to releasably support a plurality of surgical fasteners. The instrument further includes a tissue retaining mechanism which is selectively movable from a first position relative to the fastener support member to a second position in closer proximity with the fastener support member such that tissue disposed adjacent to the fastener support member is retained thereagainst. Upon actuation of the handle, a fastener firing mechanism simultaneously deforms the plurality of surgical fasteners to complete the anastomosis.

Anastomosis Instrument and Method for Performing Same

There is disclosed in a communications system having an origination storage device and a destination storage device, a data transfer pipeline apparatus for transferring data in a sequence of N stages, where N is a positive integer grater than 1, from the origination to the destination device. The data transfer apparatus comprises dedicated memory means having a predetermined number of buffers dedicated for carrying data associated with the transfer of data from the origination storage device to the destination device; and master control means for registering and controlling processes associated with the data transfer apparatus for participation in the N stage data transfer sequence. The processes include at least a first stage process for initiating the data transfer and a last Nth stage process for completing data transfer. The first stage process is operative to allocate a buffer from the predetermined number of buffers available within the dedicated memory means for collection, processing, and sending of the data from the origination device to a next stage process. The Nth stage process is operative to receive a buffer allocated to the first stage process from the (N−1)th stage process in the data transfer sequence and to free the buffer upon processing completion and storage in the destination device to permit reallocation of the buffer. The master control means further includes monitor means for monitoring the number of buffers from the pool of buffers allocated or assigned to particular processes in the pipeline, in order to prevent allocation of further buffers to a particular process when the number of buffers currently allocated exceeds a predetermined threshold.

Pipelined high speed data transfer mechanism

Performing data management operations on replicated data in a computer network. Log entries are generated for data management operations of an application executing on a source system. Consistency point entries are used to indicate a time of a known good, or recoverable, state of the application. A destination system is configured to process a copy of the log and consistency point entries to replicate data in a replication volume, the replicated data being a copy of the application data on the source system. When the replicated data represents a known good state of the application, as determined by the consistency point entries, the destination system(s) may perform a storage operation (e.g., snapshot, backup) to copy the replicated data and to logically associate the copied data with a time information (e.g., time stamp) indicative of the source system time when the application was in the known good state.

Systems and methods for performing data replication

A modular computer storage system and method is provided for managing and directing data archiving functions, which is scalable and comprehends various storage media as well as diverse operating systems on a plurality of client devices. A client component is associated with one or more client devices for generating archival request. A file processor directs one or more storage devices, through one or more media components, which control the actual physical level backup on various storage devices. Each media component creates a library indexing system for locating stored data. A management component coordinates the archival functions between the various client components and the file processor, including setting scheduling policies, aging policies, index pruning policies, drive cleaning policies, configuration information, and keeping track of running and waiting jobs.

Modular backup and retrieval system used in conjunction with a storage area network

A system and method are provided for performing storage operations relating to a first secondary copy of electronic data. A storage policy or storage preferences may dictate that a replication copy should be used in storage operations performed to a particular client, sub-client, data, media or other item. Based on the storage policy, when a new client, sub-client, data, media or other item is received, a media agent determines whether there is a replication copy of the item. In the absence of a replication copy, one may be created. The replication copy may be provided by a third party application, or created by the client or a storage management system component. Information regarding the replication copy and its corresponding first secondary copy may be stored in a database. To optimize use of system resources, storage operations relating to the first secondary copy may be performed using the replication copy instead of the first secondary copy.

Systems and methods for performing replication copy storage operations

A microprocessor includes one or more registers which are architecturally defined to be used for at least two data formats. In one embodiment, the registers are the floating point registers defined in the x86 architecture, and the data formats are the floating point data format and the multimedia data format. The registers actually implemented by the microprocessor for the floating point registers use an internal format for floating point data. Part of the internal format is a classification field which classifies the floating point data in the extended precision defined by the x86 microprocessor architecture. Additionally, a classification field encoding is reserved for multimedia data. As the microprocessor begins execution of each multimedia instruction, the classification information of the source operands is examined to determine if the data is either in the multimedia class, or in a floating point class in which the significand portion of the register is the same as the corresponding significand in extended precision. If so, the multimedia instruction executes normally. If not, the multimedia instruction is faulted. Similarly, as the microprocessor begins execution of each floating point instruction, the classification information of the source operands is examined. If the data is classified as multimedia, the floating point instruction is faulted. A microcode routine is used to reformat the data stored in at least the source registers of the faulting instruction into a format useable by the faulting instruction. Subsequently, the faulting instruction is re-executed.

Converting register data from a first format type to a second format type if a second type instruction consumes data produced by a first type instruction

A multiplier capable of performing signed and unsigned scalar and vector multiplication is disclosed. The multiplier is configured to receive signed or unsigned multiplier and multiplicand operands in scalar or packed vector form. An effective sign for the multiplier and multiplicand operands may be calculated and used to create and select a number of partial products according to Booth's algorithm. Once the partial products have been created and selected, they may be summed and the results may be output. The results may be signed or unsigned, and may represent vector or scalar quantities. When a vector multiplication is performed, the multiplier may be configured to generate and select partial products so as to effectively isolate the multiplication process for each pair of vector components. The multiplier may also be configured to sum the products of the vector components to form the vector dot product. The final product may be output in segments so as to require fewer bus lines. The segments may be rounded by adding a rounding constant. Rounding and normalization may be performed in two paths, one assuming an overflow will occur, the other assuming no overflow will occur. The multiplier may also be configured to perform iterative calculations to evaluate constant powers of an operand. Intermediate products that are formed may be rounded and normalized in two paths and then compressed and stored for use in the next iteration. An adjustment constant may also be added to increase the frequency of exactly rounded results.

Method and apparatus for multi-function arithmetic

A multimedia execution unit configured to perform vectored floating point and integer instructions. The execution unit may include an add/subtract pipeline having far and close data paths. The far path is configured to handle effective addition operations and effective subtraction operations for operands having an absolute exponent difference greater than one. The close path is configured to handle effective subtraction operations for operands having an absolute exponent difference less than or equal to one. The close path is configured to generate two output values, wherein one output value is the first input operand plus an inverted version of the second input operand, while the second output value is equal to the first output value plus one. Selection of the first or second output value in the close path effectuates the round-to-nearest operation for the output of the adder.

Floating point addition pipeline including extreme value, comparison and accumulate functions

A multiplier configured to obtain higher frequencies of exactly rounded results by adding an adjustment constant to intermediate products generated during iterative multiplication operations is disclosed. One such iterative multiplication operation is the Newton-Raphson iteration, which may be utilized by the multiplier to perform reciprocal calculations and reciprocal square root calculations. For each iteration, the results converge toward an infinitely precise result. To improve the frequency of the exactly rounded result, the results of the iterative calculations may be studied for a large number of differing input operands to determine the best suited value for the adjustment constant. The multiplier may also be configured to perform scalar and packed vector multiplication using the same hardware.

Norbert Juffa

Papers

Converting register data from a first format type to a second format type if a second type instruction consumes data produced by a first type instruction

Method and apparatus for multi-function arithmetic

Floating point addition pipeline including extreme value, comparison and accumulate functions

Method and apparatus for achieving higher frequencies of exactly rounded results

Method and apparatus for rounding in a multiplier arithmetic