Patent ID: 7412488

Claim:
A method of setting up a delegated connection, the method comprising: designating a first portion of a system memory within a first computing system for storage of frame payload data in legacy buffers, wherein the first portion of the system memory is allocated to a software driver configured to communicate between a dedicated hardware offload unit and a TCP stack; designating a second portion of the system memory for storage of frame payload data in user buffers, wherein the second portion of the system memory is allocated to an application program; establishing a TCP connection between the first computing system and a second computing system; determining whether or not to delegate the TCP connection for processing by the dedicated hardware offload unit to offload the TCP connection processing from a CPU of the first computing system; setting up an entry in a delegated connection table upon determining to delegate the TCP connection; receiving a frame for the delegated connection and determining a user buffer is available for storage of frame payload data; and uploading a portion of the frame to a location in the second portion of the system memory that is specified in the user buffer information.