System and method for accelerating input/output access operation on a virtual machine
AssigneeMellanox Technologies, Ltd.
InventorsMichael KAGAN, Dror Goldenberg, Benny KOREN, Michael TSIRKIN
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A system and method for accelerating input/output (IO) access operation on a virtual machine, The method comprises providing a smart IO device that includes an unrestricted command queue (CQ) and a plurality of restricted CQs and allowing a guest domain to directly configure and control IO resources through a respective restricted CQ, the IO resources allocated to the guest domain. In preferred embodiments, the allocation of IO resources to each guest domain is performed by a privileged virtual switching element. In some embodiments, the smart IO device is a HCA and the privileged virtual switching element is a Hypervisor.
Claims17
A method for accelerating input/output (IO) access operation on a virtual machine comprising the steps of:
- a. providing a smart IO device that includes an unrestricted command queue (CQ) and a plurality of restricted CQs;
- and
- b. allowing a guest domain to directly configure and control IO resources through a respective restricted CQ, the IO resources allocated to the guest domain through the unrestricted CQ.
A method for accelerating input/output access operation on a virtual machine comprising the steps of:
- a. in a smart IO device, providing a plurality of restricted command queues (CQs), each associated with a respective guest domain;
- and
- b. using a Hypervisor, allocating IO resources to each restricted CQ, whereby each guest domain may directly configure and control its respectively allocated IO resources through its associated restricted CQ while being isolated and protected from other guest domains.
A system for accelerating input/output (IO) access operation on a virtual machine comprising:
- a. a smart IO device that includes an unrestricted command queue (CQ) and a plurality of restricted CQs, each restricted CQ operative to be associated with a respective guest domain;
- and
- b. a configuring function operative to allocate partial IO resources to each guest domain;
- whereby the system enables each guest domain to directly configure and control IO resources, while being isolated and protected from all other guest domains accessing the virtual machine through the smart IO device.
The system of claim, 14, wherein the configuring function includes a Hypervisor.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.