System and method for supporting virtual host bus adaptor (VHBA) over infiniband (IB) using a single external memory interface

A method for supporting efficient packet processing in a computing environment, comprising:

• providing a free buffer pool that contains a plurality of packet buffers associated with one or more virtual host bus adaptors (vHBAs) in the network environment, wherein each said vHBA maintains a main linked list of buffer pointers that point to one or more packet buffers in the free buffer pool;
• defining a context table on an on-chip memory associated with an input/output (I/O) device, wherein the context table maintains a temporary linked list of buffer pointers that point to one or more packet buffers that are allocated from the free buffer pool for a disk read operation;
• and
• allowing the I/O device to
• open the context table when the I/O device receives disk read data from a physical host bus adaptor (HBA) that performs the disk read operation,
• update the temporary linked list of buffer pointers, and
• merge the temporary linked list of buffer pointers into the main linked list of buffer pointers when the context table is closed.

A non-transitory machine readable storage medium having instructions stored thereon that when executed cause a system to perform the steps comprising:

• providing a free buffer pool that contains a plurality of packet buffers associated with one or more virtual host bus adaptors (vHBAs) in the network environment, wherein each said vHBA maintains a main linked list of buffer pointers that point to one or more packet buffers in the free buffer pool;
• defining a context table on an on-chip memory associated with an input/output (I/O) device, wherein the context table maintains a temporary linked list of buffer pointers that point to one or more packet buffers that are allocated from the free buffer pool for a disk read operation;
• and
• allowing the I/O device to
• open the context table when the I/O device receives disk read data from a physical host bus adaptor (HBA) that performs the disk read operation,
• update the temporary linked list of buffer pointers, and
• merge the temporary linked list of buffer pointers into the main linked list of buffer pointers when the context table is closed.