Patent ID: 7551636

Claim:
A method for buffering variable length data at a decoupler comprises: receiving, at a decoupler, a request to queue variable length application data from a producer for subsequent processing by a particular consumer associated with the producer, the decoupler comprising a management header and a buffer pool for temporary storage of application data, and the received request comprising the length of the variable length application data; in response to the received request, dynamically selecting one of a plurality of segments in the buffer pool based, at least in part, on an available segment list header included in the management header, each of the plurality of segments having a same fixed length; in response to the received request, determining whether sufficient space exists in the selected segment for the variable length application data based on the received request; in response to the received request and a determination that sufficient space does exist in the selected segment for the variable length application data, i) automatically allocating buffer space in the selected segment based on the received request; ii) dynamically creating and formatting one or more variable length buffers in the allocated buffer space of the selected segment, the one or more variable length buffers having an aggregate length less than or equal to the fixed length of the selected segment; iii) receiving the variable length application data from the producer; and iv) populating the formatted one or more variable length buffers with the received variable length application data; and notifying the particular consumer associated with the producer that the buffered application data is available for processing.