Patent ID: 7917658

Claim:
A shared I/O apparatus, comprising: a shared I/O endpoint, configured to request/complete transactions for each of a plurality of operating system domains, wherein said each of a plurality of operating system domains communicate with said shared I/O endpoint according to a protocol that provides for routing of transactions only for a single operating system domain, said shared I/O endpoint comprising: a first I/O port, coupled to a link, configured to request/complete said transactions for each of said plurality of operating system domains according to a variant of said protocol, wherein said variant comprises encapsulating an OS domain header within a transaction layer packet that otherwise comports with said protocol, and wherein a particular OS domain header associates a particular transaction layer packet with a particular one of said plurality of operating system domains; and link training logic, coupled to said first I/O port, configured to initialize said link, wherein said link is initialized in a manner that is transparent to said plurality of operating system domains.