In
virtualization
In computing, virtualization (abbreviated v12n) is a series of technologies that allows dividing of physical computing resources into a series of virtual machines, operating systems, processes or containers.
Virtualization began in the 1960s wit ...
, single root input/output virtualization (SR-IOV) is a specification that allows the isolation of
PCI Express
PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a high-speed standard used to connect hardware components inside computers. It is designed to replace older expansion bus standards such as Peripher ...
resources for manageability and performance reasons.
Details
A single physical
PCI Express
PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a high-speed standard used to connect hardware components inside computers. It is designed to replace older expansion bus standards such as Peripher ...
bus can be shared in a virtual environment using the SR-IOV specification. The SR-IOV offers different virtual functions to different virtual components (e.g.
network adapter
A network interface controller (NIC, also known as a network interface card, network adapter, LAN adapter and physical network interface) is a computer hardware component that connects a computer to a computer network.
Early network interface ...
) on a physical server machine. SR-IOV uses physical and virtual functions to control or configure PCIe devices. Physical functions have the ability to move data in and out of the device while virtual functions are lightweight PCIe functions that support data flowing but also have a restricted set of configuration resources. The virtual or physical functions available to the
hypervisor
A hypervisor, also known as a virtual machine monitor (VMM) or virtualizer, is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...
or guest operating system depend on the PCIe device.
The SR-IOV allows different
virtual machines
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization or emulator, emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide the functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve ...
(VMs) in a virtual environment to share a single
PCI Express
PCI Express (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express), officially abbreviated as PCIe, is a high-speed standard used to connect hardware components inside computers. It is designed to replace older expansion bus standards such as Peripher ...
hardware interface. In contrast, MR-IOV allows I/O PCI Express to share resources among different VMs on different physical machines.
InfiniBand
A major field of application for SR-IOV is within
high-performance computing
High-performance computing (HPC) is the use of supercomputers and computer clusters to solve advanced computation problems.
Overview
HPC integrates systems administration (including network and security knowledge) and parallel programming into ...
(HPC). The use of high-performance
InfiniBand
InfiniBand (IB) is a computer networking communications standard used in high-performance computing that features very high throughput and very low latency. It is used for data interconnect both among and within computers. InfiniBand is also used ...
networking cards is growing within the HPC sector, and there is early research into the use of SR-IOV to allow for the use of InfiniBand within virtual machines such as
Xen
Xen (pronounced ) is a free and open-source type-1 hypervisor, providing services that allow multiple computer operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware concurrently. It was
originally developed by the University of Cambridge C ...
.
See also
*
I/O virtualization
In virtualization, input/output virtualization (I/O virtualization) is a methodology to simplify management, lower costs and improve performance of servers in enterprise environments. I/O virtualization environments are created by abstracting the ...
References
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Hardware virtualization
Computer networking
Peripheral Component Interconnect