Reconfiguring programmable hardware when a virtual machine is active

Abstract

Disclosed herein are techniques for configuring a shell logic in a configurable computing system while a client virtual machine (VM) using the shell logic is active. In certain embodiments, a configurable device includes a client configurable circuit associated with a client virtual machine, and a shell logic configured to isolate the client configurable circuit. The shell logic includes a reconfigurable shell, an isolation logic, and a packet processing logic. The isolation logic is configured to disable communication between the reconfigurable shell and the client virtual machine when the reconfigurable shell is being reconfigured. The packet processing logic is configured to service transactions between the client virtual machine and the configurable device after the communication between the reconfigurable shell and the client virtual machine is disabled. In some embodiments, the shell logic also includes a mailbox configured to enable communication between the client virtual machine and a management virtual machine.