Patent ID: 8726093

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions for maintaining direct hardware access in the event of network interface card failure, the instructions comprising functionality for: making a first determination that a first physical network interface card (PNIC) has failed, wherein the first PNIC is one of a plurality of PNICs operatively connected to a host computer system, wherein the first PNIC is activated and the other PNICs in the plurality of PNICs are deactivated, and wherein a deactivated PNIC does not send packets; based on the first determination that the first PNIC has failed: removing a first virtual function mapping between the first PNIC and a first virtual machine executing on the host computer system based on the first determination, wherein the first virtual function mapping associates a first virtual function for the first PNIC with the first virtual machine; determining a second PNIC from the plurality of PNICs; deactivating the first PNIC; activating the second PNIC; determining a second virtual function for the second PNIC; and creating a second virtual function mapping between the second PNIC and the first virtual machine, wherein the second virtual function mapping associates the second virtual function with the first virtual machine, wherein after activating the second PNIC but before creating the second virtual function mapping between the second PNIC and the first virtual machine, a first virtual network interface card (VNIC) for the first virtual machine is configured to send an outbound data packet to a second VNIC for a host operating system, wherein the second VNIC is associated with a virtual switch, and wherein the second VNIC uses the virtual switch to determine whether a hardware address for the outbound data packet corresponds with any other VNIC associated with the virtual switch.