vNIC State Migration for DPU Failover in Pass-Through Mode
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
In servers with multiple DPUs, vNICs in pass-through mode become non-functional when an active DPU fails, as they are not synchronized with the standby DPU, leading to communication disruptions.
Innovation Solution
A method for migrating the state of vNICs from a failing DPU to a standby DPU, involving the hypervisor acquiring state information from the failed DPU and transmitting it to the new DPU, ensuring seamless communication by synchronizing the vNICs with the new DPU.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Speed
If vNICs use pass-through mode for direct communication with DPU, then data path latency is reduced, but redundancy is lost when DPU fails
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-migrates vNIC state information to the standby DPU before the active DPU fails. This preliminary action ensures that when failure occurs, the standby DPU is already synchronized and can immediately take over without communication disruption, thus maintaining both low latency and redundancy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent creates a copy of the vNIC state information from the active DPU to the standby DPU. This copying mechanism ensures that the standby DPU has an identical operational state, enabling seamless failover while maintaining the direct pass-through communication path, thus preserving both speed and reliability.
2Productivity
If vNICs communicate directly with DPU in pass-through mode, then communication speed improves, but functionality is lost upon DPU failure
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary state migration to the standby DPU before failure occurs. This ensures that when the active DPU fails, the standby is already prepared with all necessary state information to immediately assume the communication function, maintaining both high productivity and adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The vNIC state information acts as an intermediary that enables the standby DPU to take over communication functions. By migrating this state information, the system creates a bridge that allows the standby DPU to seamlessly replace the active DPU, thus maintaining communication speed and functionality upon failure.
3Reliability
If standby DPU is activated after active DPU failure, then redundancy is achieved, but vNIC synchronization is lost
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs the critical action of migrating vNIC state information to the standby DPU before the active DPU fails. This preliminary synchronization ensures that when the standby DPU is activated, it already possesses all necessary state information, preventing any loss of synchronization and maintaining both redundancy and information integrity.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent copies the complete vNIC state information from the active DPU to the standby DPU before failure. This copying mechanism ensures that the standby DPU receives an exact replica of the operational state, eliminating synchronization loss when activated and preserving both redundancy and information consistency.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of migrating states of virtual network interface controllers (vNICs) of virtual computing instances between data processing units (DPUs), includes the steps of: in response to detecting a failure in a first DPU, transmitting a request to the first DPU for a state of a first vNIC of a first virtual computing instance, wherein the state of the first vNIC includes memory locations at which network packets of the first vNIC are to be stored by one of the first vNIC and a first virtual function (VF) of the first DPU for further processing by the other; and transmitting the state of the first vNIC, received from the first DPU in response to the request, to a second DPU, and instructing a second VF of the second DPU to store and process network packets of the first vNIC based on the state of the first vNIC.