Patent ID: 9507619
Filing Date: 2016-11-29
CPC Classification: G06F

Claim Text:
1. A method of virtualizing a host Universal Serial Bus (‘USB’) adapter in a virtualized environment maintained by a hypervisor, the hypervisor administering one or more logical partitions, the method comprising: establishing, by the hypervisor, for each logical partition, a queue pair for each USB device assigned to the logical partition; presenting a first logical USB adapter and a second logical USB adapter to a logical partition, wherein each logical USB adapter is associated with a USB device coupled to the host USB adapter; receiving, by the hypervisor from the logical partition via the first logical USB adapter, a USB Input/Output (‘I/O’) request; placing, by the hypervisor, a work queue element (‘WQE’) in a queue of a queue pair associated with the first logical USB adapter; administering, by an interface device in dependence upon the WQE, USB data communications among the logical partition and the USB device including retrieving, with direct memory access (‘DMA’), USB data originating at the USB device from the host USB adapter into a dedicated memory region for the first logical USB adapter; determining, by the hypervisor from information provided by a configuration manager, whether an additional USB device is presently assigned to a logical partition; and if the additional USB device is not presently assigned to one or more logical partitions, not establishing, by the hypervisor, a queue pair for any of the one or more logical partitions.