Patent ID: 7554976

Claim:
In a networking environment, a method for transferring a packet stream over to a remote direct memory access (RDMA) mode, the method comprising: establishing a packet stream with a remote peer computing device; receiving from a local application a request to transfer the packet stream to the RDMA mode after the local application has received a last streaming mode message from the remote peer computing device; buffering at least some incoming data received on the packet stream from the remote peer computing device after the request to transfer the packet stream to the RDMA mode has been received from the local application; receiving from the local application a request to perform an RDMA receive operation after the local application has sent a last outgoing streaming mode message to the remote peer computing device; after the last outgoing streaming mode message is completed, requesting that an RDMA network interface controller (RNIC) transfer to the RDMA mode; sending at least some of the buffered incoming data to the RNIC for processing; receiving a streaming mode send request after receiving the request to transfer the packet stream to the RDMA mode; processing the streaming mode send request; and waiting for the streaming mode send request processing to complete before requesting that the RNIC transfer to the RDMA mode.