Patent ID: 7992144

Claim:
A method for separating and isolating control of a network interface for use within a network system, the method comprising: providing a plurality of processing entities, a memory coupled to the plurality of processing entities, and a hardware network interface unit shared by the plurality of processing entities; wherein the hardware network interface unit comprises a plurality of control resources configured to control data flow through the hardware network interface unit; providing a hypervisor executable on at least one of the processing entities; defining, via the hypervisor, a plurality of data processing partitions, wherein each defined data processing partition includes: a distinct subset of the plurality of processing entities, a distinct portion of said memory, and a distinct subset of the control resources of the hardware network interface unit; using the hypervisor-defined data processing partitions to process multiple data portions transported by the network system such that the processing of each given data portion is isolated to a respective one of the hypervisor-defined data processing partitions.