US Patent 11863376 Smart NIC leader election

Some embodiments provide a method for a first smart NIC of multiple smart NICs of a host computer. Each of the smart NICs is for performing virtual networking operations for a set of data compute machines executing on the host computer. The method determines that the first smart NIC is elected to communicate with a network management and control system that configures the virtual networking operations. The method receives a set of configuration data for the virtual networking operations from the network management and control system. The method provides the received set of configuration data to the other smart NICs of the host computer.