Patent ID: 8108549

Claim:
A method for routing information packets within a computer system, the method comprising: routing a first packet from a first application to a second application, wherein the computer system includes a plurality of partitions, and wherein a first partition of the plurality of partitions contains the first application and the second application, and wherein a second packet is routed from the first application to a destination outside of the first partition; assigning a pre-specified destination IP address number to the first packet; routing the first packet from the first partition to a loopback interface at an IP network processing layer; associating the first packet with a field containing a partition identifier for the first partition; and directing the first packet to a mechanism configured to deliver the first packet to the first partition and prevent delivery of the first packet to a remaining one or more partitions of the plurality of partitions, in response to identifying the partition identifier, wherein the mechanism is further configured to route the first packet to the second application and prevent delivery of the first packet to any other application in the plurality of partitions.