Method and apparatus for communications between a virtualized host and remote devices

• US 8,028,040 B1
• Filed: 12/20/2006
• Issued: 09/27/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/20/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Teradici Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Teradici Corporation (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Hobbs, David Victor, Main, Ian Cameron
• Primary Examiner(s): Chan; Wing
• Assistant Examiner(s): PATEL, HITESHKUMAR R
• Application Number:
  US11/613,981
• Time in Patent Office: 1,742 Days
• Field of Search: 709/245, 709/219, 709/220, 709/250, 710/52, 710/240, 710/305, 710/63, 710/313, 370/392, 370/389, 718/1
• US Class Current: 709/219
• 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

Abstract

Communicating between virtual machines on a host computer and remotely located devices connected to device interfaces of remote computers is disclosed. The method comprises establishing communication between the host computer and at least one remote computer in operative control of at least a first device interface and a second device interface; determining that the device interfaces belong to a set of supported device interfaces; associating the at least one remote computer with at least one virtual machine; presenting to the virtual machine, in forms recognizable by the virtual machine as forms in which interface functions are presented by local controllers, interface functions associated with the first device interface and the second device interface; executing commands in response to the interface functions associated with the device interfaces; and sending to the remote computer commands and/or data related to the presented interface and usable by the device interfaces.

Claims

1. A method of communicating between a plurality of virtual machines on a host computer and a plurality of remotely located devices connected to a plurality of remote computers, the method comprising:

establishing, by a connection manager, communications between a host bridging module, of the host computer, comprised of hardware circuits, and a first one of the plurality of remote computers, the first one of the plurality of remote computers comprising a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device interface and a High Definition (HD) audio interface;

associating, by the connection manager, the first one of the plurality of remote computers with a first one of the plurality of virtual machines, the plurality of virtual machines hosted on a Central Processor Unit (CPU) sub-system that is physically separate from the host bridging module;

presenting, by the host bridging module, via a physical Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)-Express connection, to the first one of the plurality of virtual machines, in forms recognizable by native bus drivers of an operating system of the first one of the plurality of virtual machines as forms in which hardware interface functions are presented by local interface controller hardware that controls local device interfaces, a USB bus controller interface in operative control, via the communications, with the USB device interface and an HD audio bus controller interface in operative control, via the communications, with the HD audio device interface;

executing, by the first one of the plurality of virtual machines, a command in response to an event presented by the USB bus controller interface function, the event associated with the USB device interface, the executing the command generating data;

sending, via the HD audio bus controller interface and the communications, the data to the first one of the plurality of remote computers, the data usable by the HD audio device interface; and

determining that a second one of the plurality of remote computers requires a set of interface functions and repeating the establishing, the associating, the presenting, the executing, and the sending between a second one of the plurality of virtual machines and the second one of the plurality of remote computers.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein executing the command comprises a bus driver executing commands to initialize a peripheral interface controller in a remote bridging module of the first one of the plurality of remote computers.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein executing the command comprises responding to a connection event, the connection event indicating a device has been connected to the first one of the plurality of remote computers.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein executing the command further comprises communicating the data to a remote device connected to the HD audio device interface.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising terminating the communications and freeing resources of the host bridging module.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein terminating the communications comprises a connection broker sending a termination event to the connection manager, the connection manager within a virtualization manager of the host computer, when a user logs off from the first one of the plurality of remote computer.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting the first hardware interface function comprises presenting a first Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) interface function.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting the USB bus controller interface comprises translating addresses communicated over the physical PCI-Express connection into a set of virtual addresses, the set of virtual addresses associated with the first one of the plurality of virtual machines.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein presenting the USB bus controller interface comprises presenting one of a set of PCI interface functions, the set of PCI interface functions supported by the host bridging module, comprising registers and signals, connected to a physical PCI bus.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising the host bridging module presenting a video interface function that is in operative control, via the communications, with a video interface, to the first of the plurality of virtual machines.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein sending the data further comprises compressing a section of the data.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein sending the data comprises accessing, by a Direct Memory Access (DMA) controller of the host bridging module, memory of the CPU sub-system.

13. The method of claim 1 wherein sending the data further comprises determining, by the host bridging module, a data type of the data and applying a lossy compression algorithm based on the data type.

14. A computer readable memory, containing computer instructions which, when executed by a first processor of a host computer, manage communication between a plurality of virtual machines on a second processor of the host computer and a plurality of remotely located devices connected to a plurality of remote computers, by:

establishing, by the first processor, communications between the host computer and one of the plurality of remote computers, the one of the plurality of remote computers comprising a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device interface and a High Definition (HD) Audio device interface;

associating, by the first processor, the one of the plurality of remote computers with a one of the plurality of virtual machines;

presenting, by the first processor, via a physical Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)-Express connection, to the one of the plurality of virtual machine, in forms recognizable by native bus drivers of an operating system of the one of the plurality of virtual machines as forms in which hardware interface functions are presented by local interface controller hardware that control local device interfaces, a USB bus controller interface in operative control, via the communications, of the first device interface type and an HD Audio bus controller interface function associated with the second device interface;

executing, by the one of the plurality of virtual machines, a command in response to an event presented by the USB device controller interface, the event associated with the USB device interface, the executing the command generating data; and

sending, via the HD audio bus controller interface and the communications, the data to the one of the plurality of remote computers, the data usable by the HD Audio device interface; and

determining that a second one of the plurality of remote computers requires a set of interface functions and repeating the establishing, the associating, the presenting, the executing, and the sending between a second one of the plurality of virtual machines and the second one of the plurality of remote computers.

15. An apparatus for communicating between a plurality of virtual machines on a host computer and a plurality of remotely located device interfaces, the apparatus comprising:

a Central Processing Unit (CPU) sub-system that hosts the plurality of virtual machines;

a physical Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI)-Express connection;

a host bridging module comprised of hardware circuits that is independent of the CPU sub-system, the host bridging module physically coupled to the CPU sub-system by the physical PCI-Express connection, the host bridging module comprised of hardware circuits comprising a plurality of interface functions presented to the CPU sub-system, via the physical PCI-Express connection, as a plurality of PCI-based peripheral bus controllers, the plurality of interface functions enabled to communicate, commands and data, with the plurality of remotely located device interfaces in a one-to-one relationship, each of the plurality of interface functions individually presented, as equivalent to a local bus controller for local ones of the plurality of remotely located device interfaces, to a bus driver of ones of the plurality of virtual machines; and

a network interface, the network interface operatively coupling, via a computer network, the host bridging module and a plurality of remote computers, the plurality of remote computers comprising the plurality of remotely located device interfaces.

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein each of the bus drivers of ones of the plurality of virtual machines is native to a standard operating system and enabled to operate with the host bridging module as if connected to standard local interface controller hardware connected, via local device interfaces, to local devices.

17. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the host bridging module comprises a list processor, the list processor comprising a Direct Memory Access (DMA) controller, the DMA controller enabled to access memory coupled to the CPU processor, via the physical PCI-Express connection, in response to operations performed by each of the bus drivers.

18. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein the host bridging module comprises memory and processing resources separate from CPU sub-system, that are enabled to at least one of compress or decompress the data.

19. The apparatus of claim 18, wherein the memory and processing resources are further enabled to translate between the commands and the data and packet structures suitable for communication via the computer network.