Patent ID: 7849232

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: an input/output adapter to be connected to a network and to a host interface of a host computer, the adapter including capabilities, the host computer comprising a host central processing unit and being capable of using a plurality of operating systems that have techniques to interface with the capabilities, the adapter including function blocks to provide the capabilities, the adapter also including network ports to be connected to the network and being coupled to the function blocks; another interface to be connected to the host interface and to present the capabilities in a manner corresponding to an operating system technique to interface one of the operating systems with the capabilities; and at least two of the function blocks being protocol modules associated with respective protocols, the protocol modules being to perform processing related to protocol offload and remote direct memory access (RDMA) protocol, the adapter also to provide a switching function to provide arbitration in the adapter to selectively control data transfer between the ports, the protocol modules, and memory.