Technologies for hairpinning network traffic

One or more non-transitory machine-readable storage media comprising a plurality of instructions stored thereon that, in response to being executed, cause a network interface controller (NIC) device to:

• receive, by a virtual Ethernet port aggregator (VEPA) agent of a media access control (MAC) of the network interface controller (NIC), a network packet from a first virtual machine of a plurality of virtual machines, wherein the network packet is to be transmitted to a target destination for additional processing;
• transmit, by the VEPA agent, the received network packet to an agent deployed on an accelerator device of the NIC;
• forward, by the agent deployed on the accelerator device, the received network packet to a virtual Ethernet bridge (VEB) hairpin agent of the accelerator device;
• determine, by the VEB hairpin agent, whether a target destination of the network packet corresponds to a second virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines;
• and
• return, by the VEB hairpin agent and in response to a determination that the target destination of the network packet corresponds to the second virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines, the received network packet to the agent deployed on the accelerator device.

A network interface controller (NIC), the NIC comprising:

• accelerator device circuitry;
• and
• media access control (MAC) circuitry configured to:
• receive, by a virtual Ethernet port aggregator (VEPA) agent deployed on the MAC circuitry, a network packet from a first virtual machine of a plurality of virtual machines, wherein the network packet is to be transmitted to a target destination for additional processing, and
• transmit the received network packet to an agent deployed on the accelerator device circuitry of the NIC,
• wherein the accelerator device circuitry is configured to:
• forward, by the agent deployed on the accelerator device circuitry, the received network packet to a virtual Ethernet bridge (VEB) hairpin agent of the accelerator device circuitry,
• determine, by the VEB hairpin agent, whether the target destination of the network packet corresponds to a second virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines, and
• return, by the VEB hairpin agent and in response to a determination that the target destination of the network packet corresponds to the second virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines, the received network packet to the agent deployed on the accelerator device.

A network interface controller (NIC), the NIC comprising:

• means for receiving, by a virtual Ethernet port aggregator (VEPA) agent of the NIC, a network packet from a first virtual machine of a plurality of virtual machines of a compute device, wherein the network packet is to be transmitted to a target destination for additional processing;
• means for transmitting, by the VEPA agent, the received network packet to an agent deployed on an accelerator device of the NIC;
• means for forwarding, by the agent deployed on the accelerator device, the received network packet to a virtual Ethernet bridge (VEB) hairpin agent of the accelerator device;
• means for determining, by the VEB hairpin agent, whether a target destination of the network packet corresponds to a second virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines;
• and
• means for returning, by the VEB hairpin agent and in response to a determination that the target destination of the network packet corresponds to the second virtual machine of the plurality of virtual machines, the received network packet to the agent deployed on the accelerator device.