Patent ID: 7684423

Claim:
A system, comprising: a network interface card (NIC) associated with a Media Access Control (MAC) address, comprising: a default hardware receive ring (HRR), a plurality of non-default HRRs, and a hardware classifier configured to: analyze an inbound packet received by the NIC using a destination Internet Protocol (IP) address of the inbound packet, determine, based on the analysis of the destination IP address of the inbound packet, whether the inbound packet is a unicast packet or a multi-recipient packet, send the inbound packet to one of the plurality of non-default HRRs if the inbound packet is a unicast packet, and send the packet to the default HRR if the inbound packet is an inbound multi-recipient packet, and a host, operatively connected to the NIC, comprising: a plurality of virtual NICs (VNICs), wherein each of the plurality of VNICs is associated with a unique IP address and the MAC address and wherein each of the plurality of VNICs is associated with one of the plurality of non-default HRRs, and an inbound software classifier comprising a plurality of software receive rings (SRRs), wherein each of the plurality of SRRs is associated with one of the plurality of VNICs, wherein the inbound software classifier is configured to: obtain inbound packets from the default HRR, and determine to which of the plurality of SRRs to send a copy of the packet.