Implementing concurrent device driver maintenance and recovery for an SRIOV adapter in a virtualized system

A system for implementing concurrent device driver maintenance and recovery for a Single Root Input/Output Virtualization (SRIOV) adapter in a computer system comprising:

• a processor;
• providing a physical function (PF) adjunct including an adapter driver with a hypervisor for managing physical functions and virtual functions of the Single Root Input/Output Virtualization (SRIOV) adapter;
• each virtual function being associated with a physical function, and the physical function supporting SRIOV capabilities;
• said hypervisor managing functions associated with the SRIOV adapter;
• said processor using said hypervisor and said adapter driver to perform the steps of:
• performing an initialization process including said adapter driver performing adapter and virtual function (VF) configuration, and said adapter driver writing adapter and virtual function (VF) configuration data to a scratchpad buffer;
• said scratchpad buffer kept in said hypervisor and said scratchpad buffer being completely managed within said hypervisor without requiring external management;
• responsive to configuration changes being made, said adapter driver updating configuration data in the scratchpad buffer;
• responsive to adapter driver maintenance being needed, said hypervisor placing each VF driver in a freeze state, said hypervisor detaching a current adapter driver, and said hypervisor reloading the adapter driver with an updated adapter driver firmware;
• said hypervisor restarting the adapter driver with the updated adapter driver firmware, said adapter driver performing a reinitialization process including restoring adapter and virtual function (VF) configuration using configuration data values read from the scratchpad buffer;
• and
• said hypervisor preserving the configuration data in the scratchpad buffer during adapter driver restart for implementing concurrent device driver maintenance and recovery for the Single Root Input/Output Virtualization (SRIOV) adapter.