Patent ID: 9473400
Filing Date: 2016-10-18
CPC Classification: G06F,H04L

Claim Text:
1. An apparatus comprising: at least one processor; a memory coupled to the at least one processor; a physical network adapter coupled to the at least one processor; a partition manager that defines a plurality of logical partitions on the apparatus and manages resources for the plurality of logical partitions; an application running in a first of the plurality of logical partitions; a virtual network interface (VNIC) client running in the first logical partition under control of the partition manager, the VNIC client handling network communications for the application; a first VNIC server running in a second of the plurality of logical partitions under control of the partition manager having a first connection to the physical network adapter and having the ability to connect with the VNIC client when the VNIC client opens a command/response queue (CRQ); a second VNIC server running in a third of the plurality of logical partitions under control of the partition manager having a second connection to the physical network adapter and having the ability to connect with the VNIC client when the VNIC client opens the CRQ; and a VNIC server failover mechanism selecting one of the first and second VNIC servers to connect with the VNIC client when the VNIC client opens the CRQ, monitoring the selected VNIC server, and when the selected VNIC server is no longer functioning properly, the VNIC server failover mechanism selecting the other of the first and second VNIC servers to connect with the CRQ of the VNIC client.