Patent ID: 7739736

Claim:
A method for controlling consumption of resources by packet destinations comprising: receiving, from a physical network interface card (NIC), a plurality of packets from a network, wherein the physical NIC is operatively connected to a host; identifying a packet destination of a plurality of packet destinations consuming greater than a pre-determined amount of resources to process the plurality of packets, wherein the plurality of packet destinations is located on the host; analyzing each of the plurality of packets by a classifier to determine to which of a plurality of temporary data structures each of the plurality of packets is forwarded, wherein the classifier is located in the physical NIC; forwarding each of the plurality of packets to one of the plurality of temporary data structures as determined by the classifier, wherein the temporary data structure is located on the physical NIC; requesting, using a polling mode, a number of packets from the one of the plurality of temporary data structures associated with the packet destination by a virtual serialization queue located on the host, wherein the virtual serialization queue is associated with the packet destination, wherein the number of packets requested is limited by an attack control parameter associated with the virtual serialization queue, and wherein the virtual serialization queue is associated with the one of the plurality of temporary data structures; and forwarding the number of packets to a virtual network interface card (VNIC) bound to the virtual serialization queue, wherein the VNIC is one of a plurality of VNICs on the host, wherein each VNIC is associated with a different IP address.