Re: Xen support for PCI-SIG I/O Virtualization

[Greg Law <glaw@solarflare.com>]

Woller, Thomas wrote:
>> Let me know if you want to know more.
> Curious if your patches have any multi-root logic.. Or if only SR.

Actually, our patches do nothing with IOV (SR or MR).  They are a 
framework which allows one to write plugin drivers for netfront/netback 
for accelerated network tx/rx.  The framework does not mandate how this 
is implemented.  We expect it to be used by smart devices which can be 
accessed directly from the guest, but even that is not strictly 
necessary to use the framework.  If the NIC does allow safe access 
directly from the guest, it might be that the silicon uses PCI IOV, or 
some other mechanism (e.g. our smart NIC uses a proprietary mechanism 
which pre-dates IOV).

> 
> Do you have specific smart NICs that you recommend that work with your
> patches/Xen?

Yes, ours :)

You can currently buy them as "SMC Tigertron" cards.  Our plugin drivers 
will be submitted to this list soon.


Cheers,

Greg

-- 
Greg Law         Solarflare Communications            +44 1223 518 040