Patent ID: 7046696

Claim:
A method for communication of message passing traffic between computer systems connected by a link, comprising the steps of: inserting high priority, low bandwidth traffic onto a link carrying message passing traffic by: suspending the message passing on any natural coding boundary to minimize latency and jitter of the high priority information; inserting the high priority information; maintaining the link coding rules; and resuming the message passing traffic after the high priority information is sent; and, wherein 8B/10B code is used for all traffic such that: the message passing traffic is suspended on any 40 bit, 4 character, 8B/10B boundary when the message passing traffic on any natural coding boundary is suspended to minimize latency and jitter of the high priority information; and the high priority information encoding is adjusted in relation to a running disparity of the message passing traffic when the message passing traffic on any natural coding boundary is suspended to minimize latency and jitter of the high priority information; such that the high priority information has a total disparity of zero; and thereafter the message passing traffic is resumed without changing its encoding as a result of inserting the high priority information.