Patent ID: 7616563

Claim:
A method of operating intelligent network interface circuitry, wherein the network interface circuitry couples a core processor to a network to facilitate communication over the network between the core processor and at least a first peer and a second peer, wherein a first connection connects to the first peer and a second connection connects to the second peer, a plurality of connections, including the second connection, connecting to a plurality of separate peers, the method comprising: by the network interface circuitry, receiving data packets from the first peer via the network on the first connection, according to a first particular protocol; and processing the received data, including associating, with the second connection, data that is at least a portion of the data packets received on the first connection, such that the data received by the intelligent network interface circuitry on the first connection is switched to be outgoing from the intelligent network interface circuitry on the second connection, according to a second particular protocol wherein the first particular protocol operates at no higher than layer 4, and processing the received data includes processing the packets at higher than layer 4, wherein the associating is based on a result of processing the layers higher than layer 4 to determine which of the plurality of connections is the second connection.