Build an SR-IOV Hypervisor

IO virtualization is a key technology that enables SDN and NFV applications. There are two mainstream IO virtualization technologies that are used to implement a virtualized network device: VIRTIO and SR-IOV. The VIRTIO technology is a software virtualization technology that renders efficient IO virtualization based upon paravirtualization. In contrast, SR-IOV is a hardware assisted device virtualization that requires support from both the platform and IO devices. Although the packet processing throughput of a virtualized network device leveraging SR-IOV technology outperforms a device leveraging VIRTIO technology, there remains a lack of standardization amongst NIC device vendors with respect to the management of SR-IOV devices. The adoption of SR-IOV technology tends to be limited in embedded environments where ad hoc management routines are typically used. In this paper, we introduce the concept of an SR-IOV hypervisor to depict a trust management interface that can be used to manage SR-IOV devices over enterprise scale infrastructures such as the cloud. In addition, we present implementations of this new management interface through both user-space drivers (DPDK) and kernel-space drivers. Furthermore, for our user-space driver approach, we develop an innovative framework so that users can leverage existing legacy tools to manage SR-IOV devices. We demonstrate how an SR-IOV hypervisor can be deployed into a cloud environment, often containing a myriad of network devices and dynamic VM configurations, which can then be controlled via the management interface.