Patent ID: 8032664

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: an input/output adapter to be connected to a network and to a host interface of a host computer, the adapter including capabilities, the host computer to use a plurality of operating systems that have techniques to interface with the capabilities, the adapter including function blocks to provide the capabilities, the adapter also including network ports to be connected to the network and being coupled to the function blocks; another interface to be connected to the host interface and to present the capabilities in a manner corresponding to an operating system technique to interface one of the operating systems with the capabilities; and at least two of the function blocks being protocol modules associated with respective protocols, the protocol modules and an offload engine being comprised in the adapter, the adapter also being to selectively permit data received from the ports to be provided to the protocol modules, the adapter to implement virtual devices that use the function blocks, the virtual devices to be presented to the operating systems, the adapter to provide one or more input/output services to the one of the operating systems, the one or more input/output services being provided by one or more of the virtual devices and permitting implementation of at least one of block storage and remote direct memory access (RDMA).