Mellanox-vif-driver

Introduction

Hardware Based Virtual NICs (SR-IOV) can be achieved in the following ways

• Direct Interface (Para-virtualized)
• PCI Device (hostdev).

Direct Interface

Using Direct Interface is achieved by using libvirt direct interface.
The device name is a logical name that is base on the port ID of the vNIC - this should minimize the problems in migration
The VIF Driver is using vnic_type = 'direct' and using the Eswitch control utility to plug/unplug the vnic,

Physical network

In order to configure the vnic the VIF Driver use the value of 'physical_network' which is passed to the VIF driver using the Quantum v2 API from the plugin

PCI Device(hostdev)

See Roadmap

Roadmap

First phase is to support Ethernet Direct Interface.
Next phases will include hostdev support and Infiniband support.