Intel Corporation
HIGH-PERFORMANCE INPUT-OUTPUT DEVICES SUPPORTING SCALABLE VIRTUALIZATION

Abstract:

Techniques for scalable virtualization of an Input/Output (I/O) device are described. An electronic device composes a virtual device comprising one or more assignable interface (AI) instances of a plurality of AI instances of a hosting function exposed by the I/O device. The electronic device emulates device resources of the I/O device via the virtual device. The electronic device intercepts a request from the guest pertaining to the virtual device, and determines whether the request from the guest is a fast-path operation to be passed directly to one of the one or more AI instances of the I/O device or a slow-path operation that is to be at least partially serviced via software executed by the electronic device. For a slow-path operation, the electronic device services the request at least partially via the software executed by the electronic device.