Network Adapter Hardware State Migration Discovery in a Stateful Environment

Abstract

An approach is provided in which a discovery system receives a migration request to move a virtual machine that executes on a first system. The discovery system identifies a first network adapter corresponding to the first system, and identifies hardware state data used by the first network adapter to process data packets generated by the virtual machine. In turn, the discovery system identifies a second network adapter that is compatible with a native format of the hardware state data, and migrates the virtual machine to a second system corresponding to the identified second network adapter.

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         9 . An information handling system comprising:
 one or more processors;   a memory coupled to at least one of the processors;   a set of computer program instructions stored in the memory and executed by at least one of the processors in order to perform actions of:
 receiving a migration request to move a virtual machine executing on a first system; 
 identifying a first network adapter that corresponds to the first system, wherein the first network adapter includes hardware state data used to process data packets generated by the virtual machine, the hardware state data stored in a native format in a memory area located on the first network adapter; 
 identifying a second network adapter that is compatible with the native format, wherein the second network adapter is included in a second system; and 
 migrating the virtual machine to the second system. 
   
     
     
         10 . The information handling system of  claim 9  wherein the processors perform additional actions comprising:
 identifying one or more first network adapter properties that correspond to the first network adapter; 
 identifying one or more second network adapter properties that correspond to the second network adapter; and 
 determining that each of the one or more first network adapter properties are equivalent to one of the one or more second network adapter properties. 
 
     
     
         11 . The information handling system of  claim 10  wherein each of the one or more first network adapter properties matches one of the second network adapter properties. 
     
     
         12 . The information handling system of  claim 9  wherein the first system includes a first host and the second system includes a second host, and wherein the processors perform additional actions comprising:
 identifying one or more first host requirements that correspond to the virtual machine, wherein at least one of the first host requirements is selected from the group consisting of a processing requirement, a memory requirement, and a bandwidth requirement; and 
 determining that the second host supports each of the one or more first host requirements. 
 
     
     
         13 . The information handling system of  claim 9  wherein the data packets are processed according to a stateful offload format that is selected from the group consisting of a Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) format, an Internet Wide RDMA Protocol (iWARP) format, an Infiniband (IB) format, and a TCP Offload Engine (TOE) format. 
     
     
         14 . The information handling system of  claim 13  wherein the data packets are sent by the first network adapter through an overlay network environment to a destination virtual machine, the overlay network environment including one or more virtual networks that are independent of physical topology constraints of a physical network. 
     
     
         15 . The information handling system of  claim 14  wherein the information handling system is a distributed policy service included in the overlay network environment. 
     
     
         16 . The information handling system of  claim 9  wherein the processors perform additional actions comprising:
 resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system according to the hardware state data; and 
 freeing one or more resources on the first system in response to resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system. 
 
     
     
         17 . A computer program product stored in a computer readable storage medium, comprising computer program code that, when executed by an information handling system, causes the information handling system to perform actions comprising:
 receiving a migration request to move a virtual machine executing on a first system;   identifying a first network adapter that corresponds to the first system, wherein the first network adapter includes hardware state data used to process data packets generated by the virtual machine, the hardware state data stored in a native format in a memory area located on the first network adapter;   identifying a second network adapter that is compatible with the native format, wherein the second network adapter is included in a second system; and   migrating the virtual machine to the second system.   
     
     
         18 . The computer program product of  claim 17  wherein the information handling system performs additional actions comprising:
 identifying one or more first network adapter properties that correspond to the first network adapter; 
 identifying one or more second network adapter properties that correspond to the second network adapter; and 
 determining that each of the one or more first network adapter properties are equivalent to one of the one or more second network adapter properties. 
 
     
     
         19 . The computer program product of  claim 18  wherein each of the one or more first network adapter properties matches one of the second network adapter properties. 
     
     
         20 . The computer program product of  claim 17  wherein the first system includes a first host and the second system includes a second host, and wherein the information handling system performs additional actions comprising:
 identifying one or more first host requirements that correspond to the virtual machine, wherein at least one of the first host requirements is selected from the group consisting of a processing requirement, a memory requirement, and a bandwidth requirement; and 
 determining that the second host supports each of the one or more first host requirements. 
 
     
     
         21 . The computer program product of  claim 17  wherein the data packets are processed according to a stateful offload format that is selected from the group consisting of a Remote Direct Memory Access (RDMA) format, an Internet Wide RDMA Protocol (iWARP) format, an Infiniband (IB) format, and a TCP Offload Engine (TOE) format. 
     
     
         22 . The computer program product of  claim 21  wherein the data packets are sent by the first network adapter through an overlay network environment to a destination virtual machine, the overlay network environment including one or more virtual networks that are independent of physical topology constraints of a physical network. 
     
     
         23 . The computer program product of  claim 22  wherein the overlay network environment includes a distributed policy service that determines that the second network adapter is equivalent to the first network adapter. 
     
     
         24 . The computer program product of  claim 17  wherein the information handling system performs perform additional actions comprising:
 resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system according to the hardware state data; and 
 freeing one or more resources on the first system in response to resuming the virtual machine execution on the second system. 
 
     
     
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