Patent ID: 8190698

Claim:
A method of processing a packet of information received at a network device from a communications network, the packet belonging to a packet batch defined by a network interface module of the network device, the method comprising: (A) during processing of a first packet batch, sending, by a network communications processing module, a request to a direct memory access module to copy a payload of a packet of the first packet batch from a buffer of the network interface module to an application buffer on the network device; (B) completing the processing of the first packet batch by the network communications processing module; and (C) deferring polling of the direct memory access module until after the network communications processing module has requested copying, to a determined application buffer, of all packets of a next packet batch following the first packet batch and then polling, by the network communications processing module, the direct memory access module to determine whether the direct memory access module has completed copying of the packet of the first packet batch to the application buffer, except that if a predefined amount of time has elapsed after the completion of the processing of the first packet batch and before reception of a next packet batch, polling the direct memory access module prior to receiving a next packet batch to determine whether the direct memory access module has completed copying the packet of the first packet batch to the application buffer.