Patent ID: 7415034

Claim:
A network system, comprising: a plurality of processing partitions each comprising one or more processing entities configured to execute at least one operating system; a network interface unit coupled to each of the plurality of processing entities, the network interface unit including a plurality of memory access channels, the plurality of memory access channels being virtualized, the network interface unit being shared among the plurality of processing partitions, wherein the network interface unit is configured to: for each of the plurality of processing partitions, receive from a partition management module of one of said processing entities, an indication of one or more respective ones of the plurality of memory access channels that belong to the processing partition; for a data flow to be transported to or from a particular processing partition by the network interface unit, receive from an operating system executing on a processing entity of said particular processing partition, an indication of a particular memory access channel through which the data flow is to be transported, wherein said particular memory access channel is one of the memory access channels belonging to the particular processing partition as specified by the indication received from the partition management module; and transport the data flow through said particular memory access channel.