Patent ID: 8155001

Claim:
A method of operating a network interface device to facilitate the transfer of data between at least one application, operating on a host, and a peer, the transfer of data encapsulated in packets according to a particular communication protocol, the network interface device communicatively coupled to the host, the method comprising: receiving, from the application, data destined for transmission to the peer via the network; protocol processing with the peer, by a protocol mechanism operating according to the particular communication protocol and based at least in part on an indication of a desired transmission rate characteristic, to encapsulate the data received from the host into packets such that the packets are provided from the network interface device to the network with the desired transmission rate characteristics; wherein the protocol processing with the peer is controlled by a transmission rate regulating mechanism operating based on an amount of data to be transmitted and on the desired transmission rate characteristics, to regulate a rate at which the protocol processing mechanism operates with respect to the data, to encapsulate the data into packets and to cause the packets to be output from the network interface device to the network.