Patent ID: 7228375

Claim:
A method of processing a communication in a computer system having at least one input interface and at least one output interface for respectively receiving a communication and outputting the communication after processing, the method comprising: providing at least a first and a second central processing unit (CPU) coupled to respective first and second private memories, the first and second CPUs capable of executing one or more processes under control of an operating system, each process operative to generate at least a portion of a response to the communication; configuring a communications interconnection mechanism for operatively linking the CPUs, a shared memory, the input interface, the output interface and a system I/O bus for data communication there between; receiving the communication at the input interface; directly storing the communication received in the shared memory using the communication interconnection mechanism and independently of the system I/O bus; providing the communication stored in the shared memory directly to at least one of the first and second CPUs over the communication interconnection mechanism without causing an interrupt of the operating system and independently of the system I/O bus; executing at least one of the one or more processes on at least one of the first and second CPUs to generate at least a portion of the response to the communication; receiving the generated portion of the response to the communication from the at least first and second CPUs in the respective private memories associated with each of the first and second CPUs; storing in an outgoing storage the response comprising the portion of the responses generated at each of the first and second CPUs; and providing the response directly to the output interface without causing an interrupt to the operating system and independently of the system I/O bus.