Patent ID: 8151265

Claim:
A method of real-time switching from a first input/output (I/O) mechanism to a second I/O mechanism of a virtual machine operating on a virtualization platform comprising one or more virtual machines associated with one or more hypervisors, said virtualization platform operating on a computer, said method comprising the steps of: hot-removing said first I/O mechanism from said virtual machine in response to monitoring said first I/O mechanisms allocated to said one or more virtual machines, evaluation of the said first I/O mechanism and an anticipated I/O mechanism requirements of each of said one or more virtual machines and their associated hypervisors and subsequent determination, based on one or more factors comprising I/O resources available for each of said virtual machines and their associated one or more hypervisors running on said first I/O mechanism, of an optimal allocation of I/O mechanism to said one or more virtual machines; and hot-plugging said second I/O mechanism as the optimal I/O mechanism to said one or more virtual machines in accordance with said optimal allocation determination, wherein said I/O mechanism comprises emulation and direct access.