Patent ID: 8489778

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: an input/output adapter to be communicatively coupled to a network and to a host interface of a host computer, the adapter including capabilities, the host computer to execute a plurality of operating systems, the adapter to be used as virtual devices by the plurality of operating systems, the adapter also including network ports to be communicatively coupled to the network, the adapter being to offload at least certain protocol processing from the operating systems, the at least certain protocol processing comprising transmission control protocol (TCP) processing, internet small computer system interface (iSCSI) processing, and iWARP remote direct memory access (RDMA) processing, the adapter including a TCP offload engine, iSCSI hardware, and an internet wide area RDMA protocol (iWARP) module, the TCP offload engine being to perform the TCP processing, the TCP processing including TCP error checking, the iSCSI hardware being to provide hardware acceleration to the iSCSI processing, and the iWARP module being to implement iWARP direct data placement layer protocol.