Patent · US Active

Virtual machine transitioning from emulating mode to enlightened mode

US7984438B2 · kind B2 · utility

5Cited by
0References
10Claims
0Family size

Assignee

Inventors

Key dates

Filing dateFeb 8, 2006
Grant dateJul 19, 2011
Priority date
Expiry dateFeb 24, 2029

Classification

  • Technology area (CPC G)Physics
  • CPC primaryG06F9/45537
  • WIPO fieldComputer technology
  • WIPO sectorElectrical engineering

Abstract

A computing device has a hardware device employed to provide a hardware service to the computing device and a plurality of virtual machines including a host virtual machine (VM-H) to which the hardware device is assigned, and a client virtual machine (VM-C) that can consume the hardware service by way of the VM-H. The VM-C includes an emulating stack and an enlightened stack. The emulating stack interfaces an application requesting the hardware service with a trap in a virtualization layer of the computing device which re-directs the request to the VM-H. The enlightened stack interfaces the application with the VM-H and bypasses the virtualization layer. The emulating stack includes a shunt driver that shunts to the enlightened stack each request from the application directed to the emulating stack.

Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.