Extending existing storage devices in virtualized environments

A system for providing a guest with access to a virtual storage on a physical storage, the system comprising:

• a peripheral component interface hub for receiving from the guest, at an initial boot of the guest, a request to access the physical storage, the request including guest parameters, an authentication key, and physical addresses of the physical storage;
• and
• a hypervisor for receiving, during the initial boot of the guest, a first interrupt from the peripheral component interface hub receiving information about the initial request from the peripheral component interface hub, for determining, during the initial boot of the guest, whether to grant or to reject the initial request from the guest;
• and when the hypervisor grants the request, for sending to the peripheral component interface hub a configuration command including a mapping of addresses from the physical storage to addresses from the virtual storage;
• and
• wherein the peripheral component interface hub caches the mapping for mapping of addresses from the physical storage to addresses from the virtual storage, and stores the authentication key on the storage controllers;
• and wherein:
• for subsequent boots of the guest, the peripheral component interface hub receives from the guest the authentication key, the peripheral component interface hub presents a second interrupt to the hypervisor and a request for mapping, the hypervisor responds to the second interrupt with means to set-up the mapping in the peripheral component interface hub;
• and the peripheral component interface hub implements the mapping of virtual storage blocks to physical storage blocks of the storage controllers to provide the guest with memory accesses to the physical storage blocks of the storage controllers.

An article of manufacture comprising:

• at least one tangible computer readable hardware device having computer readable program code logic tangibly embodied therein to provide a guest with access to a virtual storage on a physical storage using a peripheral component interface hub, the computer readable program code logic, when executing on a computer, performing the following:
• at an initial boot of the guest, the guest sending to the peripheral component interface hub a request to access the physical storage, the request including guest parameters, an authentication key, and physical addresses of the physical storage;
• triggering a first interrupt to the hypervisor;
• the peripheral component interface hub sending specified information about the request to the hypervisor;
• the hypervisor determining whether to grant or to reject the request from the guest;
• when the hypervisor grants the request, the hypervisor sending to the peripheral component interface hub a configuration command including a mapping of addresses from the physical storage to addresses from the virtual storage;
• the peripheral component interface hub caching the mapping of addresses from the physical storage to addresses from the virtual storage, and storing the authentication key on the storage controllers;
• for subsequent boots of the guest, the guest sending the authentication key to the peripheral component interface hub;
• the peripheral component interface hub presenting a second interrupt to the hypervisor and a request for mapping;
• the hypervisor responding to the second interrupt with means to set-up the mapping in the peripheral component interface hub;
• and
• the peripheral component interface hub implementing the mapping of virtual storage blocks to physical storage blocks of the storage controllers to provide the guest with memory accesses to the physical storage blocks of the storage controllers.