Network traffic routing in distributed computing systems

A computing device in a distributed computing system having a plurality of hosts interconnected by a computer network, the computing device comprising:

• a main processor;
• a network interface card (“NIC”);
• and
• a hardware packet processor operatively coupled to the main processor and the NIC, the packet including an inbound processing path and an outbound processing path in opposite processing directions, wherein the package processor is configured to:
• receive, at the packet processor, a packet generated by a first virtual machine on the computing device and destined to a second virtual machine on the same host in the distributed computing system;
• in response to receiving the packet, determine whether the received packet is to be forwarded to a buffer in the inbound processing path of the packet processor instead of a switch in the computer network;
• and
• in response to determining that the action indicates that the received packet is to be forwarded to the buffer,
• forward the received packet to the buffer;
• and
• process the packet in the buffer following the inbound processing path to forward the packet to the second virtual machine without exposing the packet to the switch in the computer network, thereby enabling network communications between the first and second virtual machines on the same host by avoiding exposing the packet to the switch.

A computing device in a distributed computing system having a plurality of hosts interconnected by a computer network, the computing device comprising:

• a main processor;
• first and second network interface cards (“NICs”);
• and
• a hardware packet processor operatively coupled to the main processor and the first and second NICs, the packet processor is configured to:
• receive, at the packet processor, a first packet via the first NIC and a second packet via the second NIC;
• store the first and second packets in first and second outbound packet buffers of the packet processor, respectively, the first and second outbound packet buffers being operatively coupled to an outbound multiplexer configured to alternately receive input from both the first and second outbound packet buffers;
• alternately process, using the outbound multiplexer, the first and second packets from the first and second outbound packet buffers, respectively;
• and
• forward both the first and second packets received from the first and second NICs to a switch in the computer network for transmission to corresponding target destinations associated with the first and second packets.