Borrowing Pooled Devices

SmartIO supports multiple ways to use devices added to the SmartIO pool, including borrowing with device lending, both bare-metal and with guests, and using the SISCI API for low level access. See the sub-pages for more details.

Borrowing Device

Driver Software

Concurrent Use

Using Native Device Drivers

Native driver

Only with SR-IOV devices

Passthrough of non-SR-IOV pooled devices to unmodified guests

Native guest driver

None

Using Dolpin dis_nvme driver

Dolphin’s dis_nvme driver

Yes, non-SR-IOV NVMe drives can be shared in a cluster

SmartIO with SISCI

Driver must be ported or developed for SISCI API

Yes, but must be coordinated by driver software