Patent ID: 7934021

Claim:
A communication system, comprising: a first tier comprising a first server, the first server comprising a first single integrated convergent network controller (ICNC) chip; a second tier coupled to the first tier via a single fabric coupled to a single connector, the second tier comprising a second server, the second server comprising a second single ICNC chip, wherein the single fabric is operable to communicate utilizing a protocol of a group comprising TCP/IP and Ethernet; a third tier coupled to the second tier via the single fabric coupled to the single connector, the third tier comprising a third server, the third server comprising a third single ICNC chip; and wherein the first server, the second server and the third server process, respectively via the first single ICNC chip, the second single ICNC chip and the third single ICNC chip, a plurality of different traffic types concurrently over the single fabric that is coupled to the single connector, wherein each of the single first, second, and third ICNC chip comprises a layer 2/layer 4/layer 5 (L2/L4/L5) adapter, and at least one of the first, second, and third ICNC chips processes said plurality of different traffic types, wherein said plurality of different traffic types comprises: network traffic, storage traffic, interprocess communication (IPC) traffic, and cluster traffic over the single fabric, wherein the network traffic comprises: Internet or Ethernet traffic, and wherein the storage traffic comprises traffic from storage devices accessible via a network.