Patent ID: 8396953

Claim:
A method for processing packets among at least a first computing device and a second computing device, wherein the first computing device is configured to transmit and receive packets through a Network Interface Card (NIC), said method comprising: in the first computing device, initiating a transmission of packets by moving a tail pointer in a device descriptor queue of the first computing device to provide space for descriptors of packets to be transmitted to the second computing device; notifying the second computing device the descriptors of packets are ready for processing prior to in the second computing device receiving the descriptors of the packets; in the second computing device, receiving descriptors of packets to be one of transmitted and received by the first computing device through a device descriptor queue in response to a determination that a tail pointer in the device descriptor queue of the first computing device has been moved; placing the received descriptors in a virtualized descriptor queue accessible by the second computing device; and processing the packets associated with the descriptors placed in the virtualized descriptor queue prior to one of transmission and receipt of the packets by the first computing device.