Patent ID: 7792140

Claim:
A method for indicating bandwidth for a first virtual network interface card (NIC), comprising: receiving an indication to return a bandwidth of the first virtual NIC, wherein the first virtual NIC is located in a host and is operatively connected to a NIC, wherein the NIC is operatively connected to the host and is associated with a network bandwidth available to the host, and wherein the host comprises a media access control (MAC) layer; obtaining a first bandwidth allocation stored in the first virtual NIC in response to the indication, wherein the first bandwidth allocation corresponds to a bandwidth allocated to the first virtual NIC, wherein the first virtual NIC is associated with a virtual network stack, and wherein the first bandwidth allocation corresponds to a portion of the network bandwidth; returning the first bandwidth allocation to a component associated with the first virtual NIC; receiving a request to reallocate the first bandwidth allocation to a second bandwidth allocation; and in response to the request: reallocating the first bandwidth allocation to the second bandwidth allocation, generating a bandwidth reallocation notification upon reallocating the first bandwidth allocation to the second bandwidth allocation, and sending the bandwidth reallocation notification to the virtual network stack via the MAC layer.