Hypervisor flow steering for address sharing

US10795717B2 · kind B2 · utility

Assignee

• MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC · US

Inventors

• Anirban Paul · Redmond, US
• Poornananda Gaddehosur Ramachandra · San Jose, US
• Gerardo Diaz-Cuellar · Woodinville, US
• Osman N. Ertugay · Bellevue, US
• Keith Edgar Horton · North Bend, US
• Omar Cardona · Cedar Park, US
• Nicholas David Wood · Woodinville, US
• Shankar Seal · Bothell, US
• Dinesh Kumar Govindasamy · Redmond, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Sep 18, 2018
• Grant date: Oct 6, 2020
• Expiry date: Jan 25, 2039

Classification

• Technology area (CPC G): Physics
• CPC primary: G06F2009/45595
• WIPO field: Computer technology
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

Embodiments relate to hypervisors that provide hardware isolated virtualization environments (HIVEs) such as containers and virtual machines (VMs). A first HIVE includes a first virtual network interface card (NIC) and a second HIVE includes a second virtual NIC. Both virtual NICs are backed by the same physical NIC. The physical NIC has an Internet Protocol (IP) address. The virtual NICs are assigned the same IP address as the physical NIC. A networking stack of the hypervisor receives inbound packets addressed to the IP address. The networking stack steers the inbound packets to the virtual NICs according to tuples of the inbound packets. Packets emitted by the virtual NICs comprise the IP address, pass through the network stack, and are transmitted by the physical NIC with headers comprising the IP address.