Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method of providing distributed storage services to a host computer from a network interface card (NIC) of the host computer. At the NIC, the method accesses a set of one or more external storages operating outside of the host computer through a shared port of the NIC that is not only used to access the set of external storages but also for forwarding packets not related to an external storage. In some embodiments, the method accesses the external storage set by using a network fabric storage driver that employs a network fabric storage protocol to access the external storage set. The method presents the external storage as a local storage of the host computer to a set of programs executing on the host computer. In some embodiments, the method presents the local storage by using a storage emulation layer on the NIC to create a local storage construct that presents the set of external storages as a local storage of the host computer.

Abstract: A method of creating a software image of a solution to be deployed in a virtualized computing environment includes: retrieving a schema of the solution and determining from the schema software products that are required by the solution and software features that are required by the solution; for each software product, selecting a version of the software product to include in the solution and identifying software features provided by the selected version of the software product; and upon confirming that the selected versions of the software products provide all of the software features that are required, creating the software image of the solution that includes the selected version of each of the software products, and saving the software image in a storage device for deployment in the virtualized computing environment.

Abstract: A method of creating a software image of a solution to be deployed in a virtualized computing environment includes: retrieving a schema of the solution and determining from the schema software products that are required by the solution and software features that are required by the solution; for each software product, selecting a version of the software product to include in the solution and identifying software features provided by the selected version of the software product; and upon confirming that the selected versions of the software products provide all of the software features that are required, creating the software image of the solution that includes the selected version of each of the software products, and saving the software image in a storage device for deployment in the virtualized computing environment.

Abstract: Some embodiments provide a method of providing distributed storage services to a host computer from a network interface card (NIC) of the host computer. At the NIC, the method accesses a set of one or more external storages operating outside of the host computer through a shared port of the NIC that is not only used to access the set of external storages but also for forwarding packets not related to an external storage. In some embodiments, the method accesses the external storage set by using a network fabric storage driver that employs a network fabric storage protocol to access the external storage set. The method presents the external storage as a local storage of the host computer to a set of programs executing on the host computer. In some embodiments, the method presents the local storage by using a storage emulation layer on the NIC to create a local storage construct that presents the set of external storages as a local storage of the host computer.