Patent ID: 7197536

Claim:
A method of communicating between nodes in a clustered computer system, the method comprising: (a) communicating a port identifier from a first node to a second node coupled to the first node over a point-to-point network, wherein the first node includes a plurality of network ports and a plurality of communication registers, wherein each network port is configured to directly couple to an adjacent node in the clustered computer system over a point-to-point interconnect in the point-to-point network, wherein each communication register is dedicated to an associated network port among the plurality of network ports and is configured to store data received over such associated network port, and wherein the port identifier identifies a network port among the plurality of network ports to which the second node is coupled to the first node; and (b) communicating data from the second node to the first node by initiating a write operation on the first node using the second node to store the data in the communication register associated with the network port identified by the port identifier.