US Patent 8452901 Ordered kernel queue for multipathing events

An improved technique for handling events in a multipathing driver employs an event queue and a queue manager that run in the kernel of a computing system. The queue manager receives events raised by the multipathing driver, as well as events raised by software constructs, such as application programs. Records of events are added to the event queue in the order the queue manager receives them. Event records may be consumed chronologically by external software. Preferably, the event queue is sufficiently large to store all events arising out of most predicted fault scenarios. Also, the queue manager is sophisticated and can perform certain diagnostic and analysis tasks without the aid of external software.