Patent ID: 7496095

Claim:
An apparatus at a node in a network comprising: a first work queue pair comprising descriptors to describe data to be transmitted from a first node to a remote node of a local network and to describe where to store data received from the remote node to establish a connection-oriented virtual interface (VI) channel between the first node and the remote node in the local network based on a local physical address of the remote node, wherein the remote node comprises a second work queue pair and wherein the connection-oriented VI channel is established by associating the first work queue pair with the second work queue pair; a channel adapter coupled to the first work queue pair, the channel adapter to interface a host to a switched fabric; and an emulation driver coupled to the channel adapter, the emulation driver mapping a legacy physical address to the local physical address of the remote node of the local network, the channel adapter mapping the local physical address of the remote node to the established connection-oriented VI channel to communicate with the remote node; wherein the local physical address of the remote node is embedded or provided within the legacy physical address of the remote node.