US 12,143,314 B2
Pooling smart NICs for network disaggregation
Deepak Bansal, Bellevue, WA (US); and Gerald Degrace, Atlanta, GA (US)
Assigned to MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed by MICROSOFT TECHNOLOGY LICENSING, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Filed on Feb. 18, 2022, as Appl. No. 17/676,029.
Prior Publication US 2023/0269201 A1, Aug. 24, 2023
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04L 49/00 (2022.01); G06F 9/50 (2006.01); H04L 12/46 (2006.01)
CPC H04L 49/30 (2013.01) [G06F 9/5077 (2013.01); H04L 12/4641 (2013.01); G06F 2209/5011 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for processing data packets in a software defined network (SDN) of a virtualized computing environment comprising a plurality of servers hosting virtual machines, each of the plurality of servers configured with one of a skinny network interface card (NIC) or a smart NIC, the skinny NIC configured to provide network interfaces for virtual machines hosted on a server configured with the skinny NIC, and the smart NIC configured to enable virtual network communications within a virtual network in accordance with associated policies that are applied by the smart NIC, the method comprising:
receiving, by a smart NIC from a skinny NIC configured to provide a network interface to a server of the virtualized computing environment, a data packet addressed to an endpoint in a virtual network of the virtualized computing environment, wherein the smart NIC is physically disaggregated outside of the server, and wherein the smart NIC is configured to enable virtual network communications within the virtual network in accordance with associated policies that are applied by the smart NIC;
determining, by the smart NIC, that the data packet is associated with the virtual network;
based on the determining that the data packet is associated with the virtual network, mapping one of a plurality of policies to a data flow of the virtual network;
modifying, by the smart NIC, the packet in accordance with the mapped one of the plurality of policies; and
forwarding, by the smart NIC, the modified packet to the endpoint in the virtual network.