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Virtualization is the concept of separating a "function" — such as storage, memory or processing — from the underlying physical hardware — disks, DRAMs and CPUs. This allows the physical hardware to be pooled and shared across multiple applications — increasing utilization and capital efficiency — while maintaining the standard execution model for applications.

PCIe sharing consists of three distinct steps:

Separation of I/O resources — providing management independence
Consolidation of the I/O resources into pools — increasing the utilization, saving cost, power and space
Virtualization — emulating the original I/O functions as "virtual" functions without impact to the host OS or hypervisor

Separation

Instead of providing each server with internal statically deployed and provisioned I/O adapters, cables, network ports and disks, PCIe sharing separates and shares the physical I/O adapters from the servers, leaving the servers as highly optimized compute resources.

Consolidation

Once separated from the server, the I/O from multiple servers can now be consolidated into Virtensys’ PCIe sharing appliance.

Because the I/O components are now shared across many servers, they can be better utilized and the number of components is significantly reduced when compared to a non-virtualized/non-shared system. The system becomes more cost, space and power efficient, more reliable — due to fewer components and architectural advantages such as virtualized RAID — and easier to manage.

Virtualization

The final step is to create virtualized adapters (vAdapters) and pair with the defined servers. vAdapters look to the server software exactly the same as the original physical I/O adapter devices. This functional transparency preserves the end-users' huge investment in software: applications, OS/hypervisors, software drivers and management tools. vAdapters appears to the server exactly the same as they do with native physical adapters — as they leverage the same I/O architecture (PCIe), the same I/O devices, use the same native drivers. And best, these virtualized resources can be managed with the same tools (such as within VMware vCenter Server) — but with all the cost, space, power, dynamic configuration and manageability advantages that come with I/O consolidation.

	Today all industry-standard (x86-based) servers and I/O devices support PCI Express^®. The PCI-SIG has recently defined a number of extensions to PCI Express to support I/O Virtualization capabilities both within a single server (SR-IOV) and across multiple servers (MR-IOV). These extensions however have not been fully transparent with respect to standard PCI Express and require new, modified I/O devices. Virtensys' PCIe sharing technology approach, although compatible with the PCI MR-IOV standard, is based on virtualizing the high volume off-the-shelf PCI Express I/O adapters available today. Virtensys' PCIe sharing is transparent to existing servers and requires no changes to server or I/O hardware, device drivers or management tools. Being based on the native server I/O interconnect — PCI Express — it does not require any extra adapters or interfaces to other interconnects such as InfiniBand or 10 Gb Ethernet.
	Virtensys' PCIe sharing technology includes a high-performance PCI Express based switch (called the IOVE) that has been enhanced to allow multiple servers to connect to the appliance and hence for the I/O devices to be shared — and optimized — across many servers. In contrast with PCI-SIG MR-IOV — which requires changes to the I/O devices.
	The hardware virtualization layer in Virtensys technology is built into the PCI switch fabric in the form of a Virtualization Proxy Controller (VPC). The VPC is a Virtensys hardware device that works with the IOVE to virtualize multiple PCI Express I/O adapters.
	The final component of Virtensys PCIe sharing technology is the Virtensys Management Software (VMS) suite, which provides advanced I/O management capabilities. The VMS suite also provides out-of-band management of the PCI Express switching and hardware virtualization capabilities and an execution platform for I/O vendors' standard management tools. Virtensys offers multiple ways to manage their PCIe sharing appliance, through a native web-based user interface, SSH-based command line interface, the Virtensys PowerShell library (also command line based), and the VMware vCenter Server Plugin for Virtensys.

Simplified Deployment “Wire Once – Provision @ Will”

Once servers are physically connected to the VIO-4000 PCIe sharing appliance, any server can have virtualized I/O resources provisioned within a few clicks. Adding vAdapters is non-disruptive and can be done “on-the-fly”.

Centralized Management Capability

I/O provisioning is done centrally within the Virtensys PCIe sharing appliance. This means the server’s port profile/persona is not associated with the server or physical adapter inside the server, allowing the ability to “disaggregate” I/O management from the server.

Reduction in Physical Infrastructure

By leveraging PCIe sharing, all network/storage protocols can be carried over a single medium, allowing administrators to reduce the physical complexity and lower the costs of supporting multiple physical I/O adapters, which have an impact on power/cooling and physical density.

Zero-Touch Server Configuration

With Virtensys, servers are presented a virtualized instance of a physical “off the shelf” I/O adapter, there are no additional server software or drivers needed. Once connected to the VIO-4000 Series, all I/O administration is done through a simple, easy-to-use management utility (VMware vCenter Server Plugin for Virtensys), eliminating the physical interaction with the server.

Standards-based Technology Approach

PCI Express (PCIe) is a well-known and understood standard server technology -- Virtensys leverages PCIe sharing to extend the I/O capabilities of the server (blade or rack mount based), where traditional I/O adapters (10 GbE NICs, 8 GB HBAs, RAID Controllers, standard hard drives, SSDs, and PCIe based SSD adapters) are virtualized and presented to multiple servers within the virtual data center.