Distributed input/output virtualization

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10073725-B2
Application number	US-201615041207-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 11, 2016
Priority date	Feb 11, 2016
Publication date	Sep 11, 2018
Grant date	Sep 11, 2018

Abstract

The present disclosure includes apparatuses and methods related to distributed input/output (I/O) virtualization. A number of embodiments include an apparatus comprising a host computing device, a distributed virtualization controller (DVC) disposed on the host computing device, and a virtualized input/output (I/O) device in communication with the DVC.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus, comprising:
a host computing device;
a distributed virtualization controller (DVC) comprising circuitry physically disposed on the host computing device; and
a virtualized input/output (I/O) device in communication with the DVC, wherein the virtualized I/O device is configured to share resources of the virtualized I/O device between the host computing device and another host computing device coupled to the virtualized I/O device and wherein the DVC is configured to virtualize the I/O device to the host computing device on which the DVC is physically disposed.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , further comprising a management host computing device including a DVC disposed thereon, wherein the management host computing device is in communication with a network switch.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 , wherein the management host computing device is configured to initiate a recovery mechanism on a physical I/O device in communication with the DVC in response to an error condition.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the DVC is configured to expose at least one queue to the host computing device.

5. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the at least one queue is part of a multi-queue interface.

6. The apparatus of claim 4 , wherein the at least one queue is associated with a multi-function I/O device.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the DVC comprises a virtualization layer and a physical layer, the virtualization layer exposes at least one peripheral device to the host computing device, and the physical layer provides an interface between a physical I/O device and the host computing device.

8. The apparatus of claim 7 , wherein the at least one peripheral device is a peripheral component interconnect express (PCIe) device.

9. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the DVC configures a virtual I/O device based at least in part on the host computing device detecting a peripheral device.

10. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the DVC is configured to map a function associated with a physical I/O device to a virtualized I/O device on the DVC to provide communication between the virtualized I/O device and the DVC.

11. A system, comprising:
a first host computing device including a first distributed virtualization controller (DVC) comprising circuitry physically disposed on the first host computing device;
a second host computing device including a second DVC comprising circuitry physically disposed on the second host computing device, wherein the first DVC and the second DVC are in communication with at least one virtualized input/output (I/O) device, wherein the first DVC is configured to virtualize the at least one virtualized I/O device to the first host computing device, and wherein the second DVC is configured to virtualize the at least one virtualize I/O device to the second host computing device; and
a network switch in communication with the first host computing device and the second host computing device.

12. The system of claim 11 , further comprising a management host computing device including a respective management host DVC, the management host computing device in communication with the switch.

13. The system of claim 11 , further comprising a plurality of queue base address registers (QBARs) associated with the at least one virtualized I/O device.

14. The system of claim 13 , wherein a first QBAR associated with the at least one virtualized I/O device is mapped to the first host computing device, and a second QBAR associated with the at least one virtualized I/O device is mapped to the second host computing device.

15. The system of claim 11 , wherein an I/O transaction from the I/O device traverses the network switch only once.

16. A distributed virtualization controller (DVC), comprising:
a virtualization layer input/output (I/O) processing block;
a physical layer I/O processing block; and
a queuing interface,
wherein the virtualization layer I/O processing block is configured to:
determine if an I/O transaction is to be forwarded to a physical I/O in communication with the DVC; and
forward the I/O transaction to a physical layer I/O processing block in response to the determination that the I/O transaction is to be forwarded, wherein the DVC is implemented in hardware physically coupled to a host computing device and wherein the DVC is configured to virtualize the I/O to the host computing device to which the DVC is physically coupled.

17. The DVC of claim 16 , wherein the host computing device is part of a distributed computing architecture.

18. The DVC of claim 16 , wherein the virtual layer I/O processing block is further configured to send a notification to a host computing device associated with the DVC in response to the I/O transaction being forwarded to the physical I/O.

19. The DVC of claim 16 , wherein the physical layer I/O processing block is further configured to receive a notification from the physical I/O in response to the I/O transaction being processed.

20. The DVC of claim 16 , wherein the physical layer I/O processing block is configured to:
modify an address associated with the I/O transaction; and
forward the I/O transaction to the physical I/O.

21. The DVC of claim 20 , wherein the physical layer I/O processing block is configured to modify an address associated with the I/O transaction concurrently with forwarding the I/O transaction to the physical I/O.

22. The DVC of claim 16 , wherein the I/O transaction is a storage command for a host bus adapter.

23. The DVC of claim 16 , wherein the I/O transaction is a descriptor for a network interface card.

24. A method, comprising:
receiving an input/output (I/O) transaction at a distributed virtualization controller (DVC) comprising circuitry physically coupled to a host computing device, wherein the DVC is configured to virtualize the I/O transaction to the host computing device on which the DVC is physically coupled;
identifying, in a virtualization layer associated with the DVC, a physical I/O to receive the I/O transaction; and
forwarding the I/O transaction to a physical layer associated with the DVC.

25. The method of claim 24 , further comprising modifying an address associated with the I/O transaction.

26. The method of claim 25 , further comprising modifying an address associated with the I/O transaction concurrently with receiving the I/O transaction at the DVC.

27. The method of claim 24 , further comprising generating, by the DVC, an error indication in response to an error being detected by the DVC.

28. The method of claim 27 , comprising generating the error indication in the form of an interrupt.

29. The method of claim 27 , further comprising initiating a recovery mechanism on the physical I/O in response to the error indication being generated.

Assignees

• Micron Technology Inc

Inventors

• Tchapda Yves

Classifications

• G06F11/327

  Alarm or error message display · CPC title

• G06F2009/45579

  I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage · CPC title

• G06F11/301

  where the computing system is a virtual computing platform, e.g. logically partitioned systems (virtual machines G06F9/45533; logical partitioning of resources G06F9/5077) · CPC title

• G06F13/24

  using interrupt (G06F13/32 takes precedence) · CPC title

• H04L41/0803

  Configuration setting · CPC title