Context-aware NVMe processing in virtualized environments

A method, comprising:

• executing a kernel of an Operating System (OS) configured to allocate resources of a node;
• using at least a portion of at least one memory of the node as a shared memory for one or more other nodes in a network;
• executing a Virtual Switching (VS) module in a kernel space of the at least one memory, the VS module configured to queue packets for a plurality of Virtual Machines (VMs) executed in a user space of the at least one memory;
• creating a plurality of VS queues in the kernel space of the at least one memory, wherein each VS queue of the plurality of VS queues corresponds to a different respective user space application initiating requests, with at least one user space application being executed by the one or more other nodes;
• receiving at least one packet from a different node of the one or more other nodes;
• using the kernel to parse the at least one received packet to identify a flow tag indicating a user space application executed on the different node that initiated a request;
• and
• adding the at least one packet for the request to a VS queue of the plurality of VS queues based on the identified flow tag.

A node, comprising:

• at least one memory configured to be used at least in part as a shared memory in a distributed memory system on a network;
• a network interface configured to communicate with one or more other nodes in the network;
• and
• means for:
• executing a kernel of an Operating System (OS) configured to allocate resources of the node;
• receiving, by the kernel, a Non-Volatile Memory express (NVMe) request from a user space application executed by a Virtual Machine (VM) to send an NVMe command to a different node of the one or more other nodes;
• determining whether a data size to be sent to the different node for the NVMe request exceeds a maximum segment size of an NVMe over Fabric (NVMe-oF) connection with the different node;
• and
• in response to determining that the data size exceeds the maximum segment size:
• creating packets to be sent from the node for the NVMe request;
• and
• determining an order for sending the created packets such that one or more packets including data for performing the NVMe command are sent before a last packet of the created packets that includes the NVMe command.