DATACENTER APPLICATION PACKAGES WITH HARDWARE ACCELERATORS

1 . A method to implement applications and associated hardware accelerators at a datacenter, the method comprising:

receiving, at a datacenter, an application package including an application and a plurality of hardware accelerators associated with the application;

deploying the application on a virtual machine (VM) at the datacenter; selecting one of the plurality of hardware accelerators based on a datacenter characteristic; and

deploying the selected hardware accelerator at the datacenter on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA).

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of hardware accelerators are included in a wrapper in the application package.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising selecting one of the hardware accelerators based on a hardware map included in the application package.

4 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the application package includes a plurality of sub-packages, each sub-package including one of the hardware accelerators and a VM patching associated with the respective one of hardware accelerators.

5 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the datacenter characteristic includes a VM type, an operating system type, a processor type, and/or an accelerator type.

6 . The method of claim 1 , wherein deploying the selected hardware accelerator at the datacenter includes reconfiguring the VM based on the selected hardware accelerator.

7 . (canceled)

8 . The method of claim 1 , wherein:

selecting one of the hardware accelerators includes selecting one of a plurality of hardware description language (HDL) files included in the application package; and

deploying the selected hardware accelerator on the FPGA includes programming the FPGA based on the selected HDL file and one or more implementation parameters included in the application package, wherein the implementation parameters include netlist formation parameters and/or place-and-route parameters.

9 . (canceled)

10 . A virtual machine manager (VMM) to implement applications and associated hardware accelerators at a datacenter, the VMM comprising:

a memory configured to store instructions;

a processing module coupled to the memory, the processing module configured to:

receive an application package including an application and a plurality of hardware accelerators associated with the application; and

deploy the application on a virtual machine (VM) at the datacenter; and

a configuration controller configured to:

select one of the plurality of hardware accelerators based on a datacenter characteristic, wherein the datacenter characteristic includes a VM type, an operating system type, a processor type, and/or an accelerator type; and

deploy the selected hardware accelerator at the datacenter.

11 . The VMM of claim 10 , wherein the plurality of hardware accelerators are included in a wrapper in the application package.

12 . The VMM of claim 11 , wherein the wrapper is an extensible markup language (XML) wrapper.

13 . The VMM of claim 10 , wherein the configuration controller is further configured to select one of the hardware accelerators based on a hardware map included in the application package.

14 . The VMM of claim 10 , wherein the application package includes a plurality of sub-packages, each sub-package including one of the hardware accelerators and a VM patching associated with the respective one of the hardware accelerators.

15 . (canceled)

16 . The VMM of claim 10 , wherein the configuration controller is configured to deploy the selected hardware accelerator at the datacenter by reconfiguring the VM based on the selected hardware accelerator.

17 . The VMM of claim 10 , wherein the configuration controller is configured to deploy the selected hardware accelerator on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) at the datacenter.

18 . The VMM of claim 17 , wherein the configuration controller is further configured to:

select one of the hardware accelerators by selecting one of a plurality of hardware description language (HDL) files included in the application package; and

deploy the selected hardware accelerator on the FPGA by programming the FPGA based on the selected HDL file and one or more implementation parameters included in the application package, wherein the implementation parameters include netlist formation parameters and/or place-and-route parameters.

19 . (canceled)

20 . A cloud-based datacenter configured to implement applications and associated hardware accelerators, the datacenter comprising:

at least one virtual machine (VM) operable to be executed on one or more physical machines;

a hardware acceleration module; and

a datacenter controller configured to:

receive an application package including an application and a plurality of hardware accelerators associated with the application;

deploy the application on the at least one VM;

select one of the hardware accelerators based on a characteristic of the hardware acceleration module; and

deploy the selected hardware accelerator on the hardware acceleration module, wherein the hardware accelerators are included in an extensible markup language (XML) wrapper in the application package.

21 . (canceled)

22 . The datacenter of claim 20 , wherein the datacenter controller is further configured to select one of the hardware accelerators based on a hardware map included in the application package.

23 . The datacenter of claim 20 , wherein the application package includes a plurality of sub-packages, each sub-package including one of the hardware accelerators and a VM patching associated with the respective one of the hardware accelerators.

24 . The datacenter of claim 20 , wherein the characteristic of the hardware acceleration module includes a type of the at least one VM, an operating system type, a processor type, and/or an accelerator type.

25 . The datacenter of claim 20 , wherein the datacenter controller is configured to deploy the selected hardware accelerator at the datacenter by reconfiguring the at least one VM based on the selected hardware accelerator.

26 . The datacenter of claim 20 , wherein the hardware acceleration module is a field-programmable gate array (FPGA).

27 . The datacenter of claim 26 , wherein the datacenter controller is configured to:

select one of the hardware accelerators by selecting one of a plurality of hardware description language (HDL) files included in the application package; and

deploy the selected hardware accelerator on the hardware acceleration module by programming the FPGA based on the selected HDL file and implementation parameters included in the application package.

28 . The datacenter of claim 27 , wherein the implementation parameters include netlist formation parameters and/or place-and-route parameters.

29 .- 49 . (canceled)