Patent ID: 7535916

Claim:
A method for sharing a transport connection in a host having two or more processors, the method comprising the computer-implemented steps of: assigning ranges of transport sequence numbers to the two or more processors, wherein a particular range assigned to a particular processor does not overlap with any other range that is assigned to any other processor; wherein the two or more processors in the host exchange limited inter-processor communications; wherein only a designated processor, of the two or more processors, is operable to maintain state information for the transport connection; sending, over the transport connection, an outbound message from a processor of the two or more processors, wherein the outbound message includes a transport sequence number selected only from the range of the transport sequence numbers assigned to the processor; and receiving, over the transport connection, an inbound message at the designated processor of the two or more processors, wherein the designated processor is configured to receive all inbound messages sent to the host over the transport connection; wherein the inbound message includes an acknowledgement of the outbound message.