Patent ID: 6963905

Claim:
In a network having a plurality of computer system calls, said computer system calls available to a user of a first process residing on a first processor to begin and facilitate communication with a second process residing on a second host processor, through a data storage system, wherein the first and second processors are separately coupled to the data storage system, said computer system calls comprising: a first call within said process to obtain a communication mechanism that is an interface from said data storage system, wherein said first call selects a transfer means and a desired type of communication, wherein the interface is a socket that is allocated from a shared memory region in said data storage system by one of the processes, wherein the socket is not bound to any specific destination address; a second call within said first process to create a local address for said first process to use with said communication mechanism; and a third call within said first process to create a connection between said first process and said second process, wherein said third call connects said first process to said second process.