Dynamically relocating devices between virtual machines

• US 20080244574A1
• Filed: 03/26/2007
• Published: 10/02/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 03/26/2007
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Shanbhogue, Vedvyas, Tallam, Madhukar
• Application Number:
  US11/728,429
• Publication Number:
  US 20080244574A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 718/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2009/45579 I/O management, e.g. providing access to device drivers or storage
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/45558 Hypervisor-specific management and integration aspects
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0816 the condition being an adaptation, e.g. in response to network events
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0897 by horizontal or vertical scaling of resources, or by migrating entities, e.g. virtual resources or entities

Abstract

A virtual machine monitor may reassign hardware bus devices from one virtual machine to another. The virtual machine monitor may turn a device off, reassign it to a different virtual machine, and then turn the device back on. Device interrupts are remapped from the source virtual machine to the target virtual machine.

Claims

1. A computer readable medium storing instructions:

to enable a computer to;

enable a virtual machine monitor to assign a bus device to a source virtual machine;

enable the virtual machine monitor to reassign a device from the source virtual machine to a target virtual machine; and

remap device interrupts to the target virtual machine.

2. The medium of claim 1 further storing instructions to locate the configuration space of said bus device.

3. The medium of claim 2 further storing instructions to remove the device from a table of the source virtual machine.

4. The medium of claim 3 further storing instructions to enable the virtual machine monitor to turn a device off.

5. The medium of claim 4 further storing instructions to enable the virtual machine monitor to reassign the device to the target virtual machine and then turn the device back on.

6. The medium of claim 5 further storing instructions to add a bus device to a remap table for the target virtual machine.

7. A system comprising:

a processor; and

a virtual machine monitor coupled to the processor, said virtual machine monitor to assign a bus device to a source virtual machine, to reassign the device from the source virtual machine to a target virtual machine and to remap device interrupts to the target virtual machine.

8. The system of claim 7, said virtual machine monitor to locate the configuration space of said bus device.

9. The system of claim 8, said virtual machine monitor to remove the device from a table of the source virtual machine.

10. The system of claim 9, said virtual machine monitor to turn the bus device off.

11. The system of claim 10, said virtual machine monitor to reassign the device to the target machine and then turn the device back on.

12. The system of claim 11, said virtual machine monitor to add a bus device to a remap table for the target virtual machine.