Patent ID: 8103809

Claim:
A method for communicating with networked clients and servers through a network device, the method comprising: establishing a plurality of direct memory access (DMA) channels across a host system bus over which a plurality of executing applications having respective application drivers communicate with a network through a network device configured to receive and transmit network data packets; receiving, at a first port in the network device, a first network data packet destined for an executing application; identifying a first DMA channel over which to transmit the first network data packet towards the destined executing application; and transmitting the first network data packet to the destination executing application over the designated DMA channel mapping to the first port, wherein the respective application drivers are independent from other application drivers associated with other executing applications in the plurality of executing applications, and wherein the respective application drivers independently manage access to a corresponding DMA channel such that each DMA channel in the plurality of DMA channels is independent of the other DMA channels and has unique independent allotted resources.