The hw_server application is launched by Vivado Design Suite when using the debug feature. Through the Vivado IDE you can connect hw_server to local or remote FPGA targets. This same interface is used to connect to local or remote PCIe-XVC targets as well. The Host PCIe XVC-Server application connects to the AMD hw_server using TCP/IP socket. This allows Vivado (using hw_server ) and the XVC-Server application to be running on the same PC or separate PCs connected through Ethernet. The XVC-Server application needs to be run on a PC that is directly connected to the FPGA hardware resource. In this scenario the FPGA hardware is connected through PCIe to a Host PC. The XVC-Server application connects to the FPGA hardware device through the PCIe-XVC driver that is also running on the Host PC.