Exposing PCIe capabilities to the Cloud Scheduler

["Bhandaru, Malini K" <ma...@intel.com>]

Hello CloudStack-ers!

PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) devices exist for graphics processing, storage, digital signal processing, accelerating encryption/decryption, and more. Further, within a function class, devices can exhibit different capability levels. Exposing such platform hardware capabilities to the cloud scheduler allows Virtual Machines (VMs) to explicitly request them for improved performance and for the cloud vendor the opportunity to offer services at different price points. facilitate differentiated revenur opportunities to the cloud vendor.

CloudStack already exposes GPU acceleration<https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CLOUDSTACK/GPU+and+vGPU+support+for+CloudStack+Guest+Vms>. Along these lines PCIe capabilities, including SR-IOV (Single Root IO virtualization) can be exposed.
OpenStack has a set of blueprints for the same. The implementation spans tracking the PCIe devices associated with a host, their use, VM association, and requesting PCIe features. libvirt has been modified to accommodate PCIe discovery. Intel and Mirantis contributed a lot of the code.
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/epa-for-pcie-devices
https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/pci-passthrough-libvirt

Should you have an interest in supporting such functionality and have technical questions, please get in touch.

Regards
Malini Bhandaru, Intel

RE: Exposing PCIe capabilities to the Cloud Scheduler

[Edison Su <Ed...@citrix.com>]

Welcome, my dear Intel friends:)
Last year, community has contributed code regarding to add PCI passthrough into CloudStack, see the patch: https://reviews.apache.org/r/12098/, but unfortunately, this patch doesn't get checked in, due to lack of support from committer: http://markmail.org/message/ux2ojhxfqwdvz2uc. 
If you guys want to pick it up, either work from scratch, or based on the original patch, that will be great.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bhandaru, Malini K [mailto:malini.k.bhandaru@intel.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, February 12, 2014 12:48 PM
> To: dev@cloudstack.apache.org
> Cc: Dugger, Donald D; Jiang, Yunhong; Meshkin, Omid; Manan Shah; Bob Ball;
> Hoban, Adrian
> Subject: Exposing PCIe capabilities to the Cloud Scheduler
> 
> Hello CloudStack-ers!
> 
> PCIe (Peripheral Component Interconnect Express) devices exist for graphics
> processing, storage, digital signal processing, accelerating
> encryption/decryption, and more. Further, within a function class, devices
> can exhibit different capability levels. Exposing such platform hardware
> capabilities to the cloud scheduler allows Virtual Machines (VMs) to explicitly
> request them for improved performance and for the cloud vendor the
> opportunity to offer services at different price points. facilitate differentiated
> revenur opportunities to the cloud vendor.
> 
> CloudStack already exposes GPU
> acceleration<https://cwiki.apache.org/confluence/display/CLOUDSTACK/GP
> U+and+vGPU+support+for+CloudStack+Guest+Vms>. Along these lines
> PCIe capabilities, including SR-IOV (Single Root IO virtualization) can be
> exposed.
> OpenStack has a set of blueprints for the same. The implementation spans
> tracking the PCIe devices associated with a host, their use, VM association,
> and requesting PCIe features. libvirt has been modified to accommodate
> PCIe discovery. Intel and Mirantis contributed a lot of the code.
> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/epa-for-pcie-devices
> https://blueprints.launchpad.net/nova/+spec/pci-passthrough-libvirt
> 
> Should you have an interest in supporting such functionality and have
> technical questions, please get in touch.
> 
> Regards
> Malini Bhandaru, Intel