Abstract: A new approach is proposed to offload of link aggregation from a host to a HBA in SRIOV mode. The HBA first creates one or more link aggregation offload engines each having one or more physical ports and to establish a first link between a VM running on the host and one of the link aggregation offload engines for network data transmission with the VM. Once a data packet is received from the VM over the first link, the link aggregation offload engine chooses a first physical port based on its link aggregation method and establish a second link with the chosen first physical port to transmit the packet out of the HBA. If the second link fails, the link aggregation offload engine then chooses a second physical ports and establish a third link with the chosen second physical port to transmit the packet out of the HBA device instead.

Abstract: A new approach is proposed to offload of link aggregation from a host to a HBA in SRIOV mode. The HBA first creates one or more link aggregation offload engines each having one or more physical ports and to establish a first link between a VM running on the host and one of the link aggregation offload engines for network data transmission with the VM. Once a data packet is received from the VM over the first link, the link aggregation offload engine chooses a first physical port based on its link aggregation method and establish a second link with the chosen first physical port to transmit the packet out of the HBA. If the second link fails, the link aggregation offload engine then chooses a second physical ports and establish a third link with the chosen second physical port to transmit the packet out of the HBA device instead.

Abstract: A new approach is proposed that contemplates systems and methods to support performing a live update or upgrade of a firmware of an embedded networking device to a successful completion without resetting the embedded networking device. For the live update or upgrade to the firmware of the embedded networking device, a new version of the firmware that includes new features/enhancements to improve the product functionality or fix bugs encountered in previous versions of the firmware is installed seamlessly on the embedded networking device to replace the current version of the firmware on one or more cores at a time. During the live firmware updating or upgrading process, various software applications running on other cores of the embedded networking device continue to perform packet processing operations without any interruption. The live firmware update process continues until all cores of the embedded networking device are updated with the newly updated/upgraded firmware.