Amazon.com, Inc.
Using an I/O proxy device to filter I/O messages in a computer system

Abstract:

Techniques are described for the creation and use of input/output (I/O) filters used to perform actions relative to I/O requests passing through an I/O proxy device of a computer system. A computer system includes one or more hardware processing elements (for example, one or more central processing units (CPUs), graphics processing units (GPUs), or other types of processing elements), one or more data storage devices (for example, hard-disk drives, solid-state drives (SSDs), network-accessible block storage devices, and so forth), and an I/O proxy device that is interposed between at least one of the hardware processing elements and at least one of the one or more data storage devices. The interposition of an I/O proxy device between hardware processing elements and data storage devices enables the I/O proxy device to participate in the I/O data path, for example, to receive I/O messages and to perform various actions relative to such messages.