Assignment of Resources in an Input/Output (I/O) Virtualization System

• US 20110119423A1
• Filed: 05/31/2010
• Published: 05/19/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 11/18/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: SanDisk Technologies LLC (Western Digital Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Longitude Enterprise Flash S.à r.l. (Vector Capital Corporation)
• Inventors: Malwankar, Kiron, Kishore, Karagada R., Kirkpatrick, Peter E.
• Granted Patent: US 8,732,349 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 710/302
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/102 where the programme performs an interfacing function, e.g. device driver G06F13/105 takes precedence; scheduling within device drivers G06F9/52; contention policies within device drivers G06F9/4881
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 13/4022 using switching circuits, e.g. switching matrix, connection or expansion network G06F13/4009 takes precedence
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2213/0058 Bus-related hardware virtualisation

Abstract

An Input/Output (IO) Virtualization (IOV) system provides a mechanism for sharing computer peripheral devices or resources between multiple host computers by presenting a single resource multiple times to numerous host systems. The IOV system provides IO virtualization and host-to-host communication services to the host computers. The system comprises device interfaces coupled to the IO devices. Each IO device comprises at least one endpoint function (EPF). Host interfaces are each coupled to one of a number of host computers. Each host interface includes a proxy, and each proxy comprises configuration data.

Claims