PCIe devices installed in host computers communicating with service nodes can provide virtualized and high availability PCIe functions to host computer workloads. The PCIe device can receive a PCIe TLP encapsulated in a PCIe DLLP via a PCIe bus. The TLP includes a TLP address value, a TLP requester identifier, and a TLP type. The PCIe device can terminate the PCIe transaction by sending a DLLP ACK message to the host computer in response to receiving the TLP. The TLP packet can be used to create a workload request capsule that includes a request type indicator, an address offset, and a workload request identifier. A workload request packet that includes the workload request capsule can be sent to a virtualized service endpoint. The service node, implementing the virtualized service endpoint, receives a workload response packet that includes the workload request identifier and a workload response payload.

An automation system includes a first control facility with a first fieldbus connection, a second control facility with a second fieldbus connection, a fieldbus, a peripheral board with at least one I/O peripheral module, wherein the peripheral board has an interface module with a third fieldbus connection, where the interface module has at least one I/O module which stores interconnection information featuring an assignment of input/outputs of the I/O peripheral module(s) to the control facilities, where the interface module additionally has a virtual I/O module, in which an output region is assigned to the first control facility, and furthermore an input region is assigned to the second controller, and where the virtual I/O module is configured such that the output data is copied from the output region of the first control facility into the input region as input data for the second control facility.

The invention is a method for controlling execution of an application. The method comprising: installing and activating a software license unit including License terms and a secure repository comprising both an applet and parameters, providing a virtual USB dongle including a command gate, a License validator, a VM controller and a VM engine initially devoid of applet, verifying the License terms and only if the verification of the License terms is successful: loading said applet and parameters to the VM engine and enabling the Command gate, initializing configuration data and secret data in the VM engine by using the parameters stored in the VM engine then exchanging, between the applet and said hardware function driver, USB messages to control execution of said application.

PCIe devices installed in host computers communicating with service nodes can provide virtualized and high availability PCIe functions to host computer workloads. The PCIe device can receive a PCIe TLP encapsulated in a PCIe DLLP via a PCIe bus. The TLP includes a TLP address value, a TLP requester identifier, and a TLP type. The PCIe device can terminate the PCIe transaction by sending a DLLP ACK message to the host computer in response to receiving the TLP. The TLP packet can be used to create a workload request capsule that includes a request type indicator, an address offset, and a workload request identifier. A workload request packet that includes the workload request capsule can be sent to a virtualized service endpoint. The service node, implementing the virtualized service endpoint, receives a workload response packet that includes the workload request identifier and a workload response payload.

Methods and apparatus for efficient scaling of fabric architectures such as those based on PCIe technology, including up to very large fabrics and numbers of hosts/devices for use in ultra-high performance applications such as for example data centers and computing clusters. In one aspect, methods and apparatus for using Non-Transparent Bridge (NTB) technology to export Message Signaled Interrupts (MSIs) to external hosts are described. In a further aspect, an IO Virtual Address (IOVA) space is created is used as a method of sharing an address space between hosts, including across the foregoing NTB(s). Additionally, a Fabric Manager (FM) entity is disclosed and utilized for programming e.g., PCIe switch hardware to effect a desired host/fabric configuration.

Examples may include a computing platform having a host driver to get a packet descriptor of a received packet stored in a receive queue and to modify the packet descriptor from a first format to a second format. The computing platform also includes a guest virtual machine including a guest driver coupled to the host driver, the guest driver to receive the modified packet descriptor and to read a packet buffer stored in the receive queue using the modified packet descriptor, the packet buffer corresponding to the packet descriptor.

A computer device includes a central processing unit (CPU), a network adapter, a bus, and an intermediate device, where the intermediate device is coupled to both the CPU and the network adapter through the bus, and is configured to establish a correspondence between address information of an agent unit and address information of a function unit, and implement forwarding of a packet between the CPU and the network adapter based on the correspondence.

Examples include a method of performing failover of in an I/O architecture by allocating a first set of resources, associated with a first port of a physical device, to a virtual device, allocating a second set of resources, associated with a second port of the physical device, to the virtual device, assigning the virtual device to a virtual machine, activating the first set of resources, and transferring data between the virtual machine and the first port using the virtual device and the first set of resources. The method further includes detecting an error in the first set of resources, deactivating the first set of resources and activating the second set of resources, and transferring data between the virtual machine and the second port using the virtual device and the second set of resources.

Examples may include a method of instantiating a virtual machine, instantiating a virtual device to transmit data to and receive data from assigned resources of a shared physical device; and assigning the virtual device to the virtual machine, the virtual machine to transmit data to and receive data from the physical device via the virtual device.

A method for facilitation of aggregation of contiguous data packets, such as contiguous I/O adapter stores, is disclosed. Commensurate with receiving data packets to be written to a memory, multiple contiguous data units of the data packets are aggregated into an aggregated data block. The aggregated data block is validated for writing to memory responsive to either the aggregated data block reaching a size which with inclusion of a next contiguous data unit in the aggregated data block would result in the aggregated data block exceeding a configurable size limit, or a next data unit of the plurality of data units to be written to memory being non-contiguous with the multiple contiguous data units.