SPECIALIZING VIRTUAL NETWORK DEVICE PROCESSING TO AVOID INTERRUPT PROCESSING FOR HIGH PACKET RATE APPLICATIONS

摘要

A method of high packet rate network processing in a system that includes a physical host and a set of physical network interface controllers (PNICs). The physical host is hosting a set of data compute nodes (DCNs). Each DCN includes a virtual network interface controller (VNIC) for communicating with one or more PNICs to exchange packets. The method determines that a rate of packets received from a particular DCN at the VNIC of the particular DCN exceeds a predetermined threshold. The method performs polling to determine the availability of packets received at the VNIC from the particular DCN while the rate of packets received from the DCN at the VNIC is exceeding the threshold. The method utilizes interrupts to determine the availability of packets received at the VNIC from the particular DCN while the rate of packets received from the DCN at the VNIC does not exceed the threshold.