Patent ID: 7647436

Claim:
A system, comprising: a host comprising at least one per-connection data structure and at least one per-processor data structure, wherein the at least one per-connection data structure is associated with a connection, and wherein the at least one per-processor data structure comprises a request queue; and an offload engine operatively connected to the host, comprising a state register identifying a current state of the connection, a bytes sent count register storing a number of bytes sent on the connection, and an incoming connection count register storing a number of incoming connections, and functionality to update the at least one per-connection data structure in the host, wherein the offload engine is configured to send and receive network data on the connection, wherein the host and the offload engine communicate using the at least one per-processor data structure, wherein the offload engine communicates a status of the connection to the host using the state register, the bytes sent count register, and the incoming connection count register, wherein the host posts a new request in the request queue and notifies the offload engine of the new request by writing to a last posted descriptor register in the offload engine wherein the at least one per-connection data structure comprises a mirror of the state register, a mirror of the bytes sent count register, and a mirror of the incoming connection count register.