Negotiated assignment of resources to a virtual machine in a multi-virtual machine environment

摘要

A system and method are disclosed. In one embodiment the system includes a physical resource that is capable of generating I/O data. The system also includes multiple virtual machines to utilize the physical resource. Among the virtual machines are a resource source virtual machine that is capable of owning the physical resource. The resource source virtual machine is also capable of sending a stream of one or more I/O packets generated from the I/O data that targets a resource sink virtual machine. The resource sink virtual machine is designated as a termination endpoint of the I/O data from the physical device. Also among the virtual machines are one or more resource filter virtual machines. Each of the resource filter virtual machines is capable of filtering I/O packets of a particular type from the stream prior to the stream reaching the resource sink virtual machine.