DETERMINATION OF ACTIVE AND STANDBY SMART NICS THROUGH DATAPATH

Organization Name

Inventor(s)

Ankur Kumar Sharma of Mountain View CA US

DETERMINATION OF ACTIVE AND STANDBY SMART NICS THROUGH DATAPATH

This abstract first appeared for US patent application 18380859 titled 'DETERMINATION OF ACTIVE AND STANDBY SMART NICS THROUGH DATAPATH

Original Abstract Submitted

Some embodiments provide a method for a first smart NIC of multiple smart NICs of a host computer. Each of the smart NICs executes a smart NIC operating system that performs networking operations for a set of data compute machines executing on the host computer. When the first smart NIC identifies itself as an active smart NIC for the host computer, the first smart NIC sends a first message through a datapath to a second smart NIC to verify whether the second smart NIC identifies as an active smart NIC or a standby smart NIC. If the second smart NIC sends a reply second message to the first smart NIC through the datapath, the first smart NIC (i) determines that the second smart NIC identifies as a standby smart NIC and (ii) operates to process data traffic sent to and from the host computer as the active smart NIC.