Patent ID: 8850076

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a plurality of modular components each relating to a different function of the apparatus; a component of the plurality of components comprising a network connection processor, which comprises a physical network connection block to receive data from and transmit data to a network and a first data processor configured to process data arriving at the network connection processor, wherein the network connection processor writes the processed data into a memory; the component further comprising a second data processor configured to further process the processed data written to the memory by the network connection processor; and the component further comprising an internal connection bus for connecting the first data processor to the memory and the memory to the second data processor, wherein the first data processor is further configured to process the data by decoding the data, determining a destination for the data, and transforming the data into a format that is recognized by the second data processor wherein the second data processor receives the processed data from the memory via the internal connection bus and does not perform at least some of the data processing performed by the first data processor so that the second data processor is free to perform other tasks; and wherein the first data processor is separate from the second data processor such that only the first data processor handles network interconnect traffic.