Handling Tenant Requests in a System that Uses Acceleration Components

A service mapping component (SMC) is described herein for processing requests by instances of tenant functionality that execute on software-driven host components (or some other components) in a data processing system. The SMC is configured to apply at least one rule to determine whether a service requested by an instance of tenant functionality is to be satisfied by at least one of: a local host component, a local hardware acceleration component which is locally coupled to the local host component, and/or at least one remote hardware acceleration component that is indirectly accessible to the local host component via the local hardware acceleration component. In performing its analysis, the SMC can take into account various factors, such as whether or not the service corresponds to a line-rate service, latency-related considerations, security-related considerations, and so on.