Methods and apparatus are provided for creating a secure zone having
multiple servers connected to a resource virtualization switch through
I/O bus interfaces, such as PCI Express or PCI-AS. Servers connected to
the resource virtualization switch using I/O bus interfaces share access
to one or more virtualized cryptographic accelerators associated with the
resource virtualization switch. Applications on a server or system images
running on hypervisor inside server can use cryptographic accelerators
associated with the resource virtualization switch as though the
resources were included in the server itself. Connections between
multiple servers and the resource virtualization switch are secure
non-broadcast connections. Data provided to a resource virtualization
switch can be cryptographically processed using one or more shared and
virtualized cryptographic accelerators.