vdevbased

Vdevbased refers to a design approach in software architecture in which virtual devices (vdevs) serve as the fundamental building blocks for resources and input/output pathways. In a vdevbased system, components such as storage, networking, or peripheral interfaces are assembled from configurable virtual devices that encapsulate drivers, queues, and management policies. The term is not tied to a single project or standard, and its precise meaning can vary across contexts.

The core idea is to treat virtual devices as modular abstractions that can be created, configured, scaled, and isolated independently. A vdevbased architecture typically includes a device registry or catalog, a control plane for provisioning and reconciliation, and a set of interfaces that allow higher-level services to compose complex I/O topologies from simpler vdev building blocks. This enables dynamic reconfiguration, hot-plugging, and fault isolation, with performance and security considerations focused on minimizing translation overhead and enforcing strict access controls between vdev boundaries.

Common applications discussed in this approach include storage systems that model disks and caches as vdevs, virtualized I/O stacks in hypervisors or container runtimes, and edge or embedded environments that require flexible, policy-driven resource management. Advocates argue that vdevbased designs can improve modularity, portability, and resilience by decoupling hardware or lower-layer specifics from higher-level services, though adoption remains heterogeneous and implementation details vary.

See also: virtual device, vdev, device model, I/O virtualization, software-defined storage.