Frameworks and interfaces for offload device-based packet processing
AssigneeAmazon Technologies, Inc.
InventorsPradeep Vincent, Matthew David Klein, Samuel James McKelvie
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
High-speed processing of packets to, and from, a virtualization environment can be provided while utilizing hardware-based segmentation offload and other such functionality. A hardware vendor such as a network interface card (NIC) manufacturer can enable the hardware to support open and proprietary stateless tunneling in conjunction with a protocol such as single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) in order to implement a virtualized overlay network. The hardware can utilize various rules, for example, that can be used by the NIC to perform certain actions, such as to encapsulate egress packets and decapsulate packets.
Claims21
(canceled)
A method, comprising:
- determining, using a Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) hosted in a computing system, if a virtual machine hosted in the computing system is configured to communicate with an offload device of the computing system using a single root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) interface;
- upon determining that the virtual machine is not configured to access functionality of the offload device, transmitting a first set of driver instructions into the virtual machine, wherein the first set of driver instructions, when executed by the virtual machine, enables the virtual machine to communicate with the offload device to access functionality of the offload device using the SR-IOV interface.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a computing system configured to host a first virtual machine;
- a first offload device;
- and
- memory, including operating instructions that, when executed by the computing system, enable the computing system to transmit a first set of driver instructions to the first virtual machine that, when executed by the first virtual machine, alters the format of data transmitted between the first virtual machine and the first offload device to conform to a first protocol.
A method, comprising:
- storing, in a computing system hosting a virtualized environment, a plurality of drivers each associated with a function of an offload device;
- determining, by a Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) of the computing system, if a guest virtual machine coupled to the VMM lacks a driver of the plurality of drivers to used implement a first function of the offload device;
- selecting, by the VMM, a first driver of the plurality of drivers associated with the first function;
- and
- injecting, by the VMM, the first driver into the guest virtual machine to enable the first function to be accessed by the guest virtual machine.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.