Virtualizing the Network Interface

• All about virtualization
  • what is it that you're virtualizing? Unet/MM: virtualizing the NI. VNTP/Myrinet: virtualize NI plus adding performance through ILP of transport into DL, but forcing reliability on you.
  • end-to-end viewpoint:
  • IP at user-level: demonstrated works if nothing goes wrong (single peer-to-peer with no timeouts). Nothing really shown for high-contention, wide area, etc.
  • usual ALF arguments against single uniform reliability mechanism apply to the question of what should be virtualized.
  • Customization/ASHs
• Bottom line: usual tradeoff between generality vs. customization vs. exposing details, and performance/effort tradeoffs.