Patent ID: 7870298

Claim:
An information processing apparatus provided with a plurality of logical partitions assigned logically divided computing resources, and configured such that operating systems are independently run in the respective logical partitions, comprising: a network driver which receives a request for communication from the logical partitions assigned respective physical addresses and controls transmission and reception of data, wherein the network driver uses DMA to transmit a frame received from one logical partition to a routing apparatus regardless of whether the frame is destined to another logical partition within the information processing apparatus or to an external device other than the information processing apparatus, while the routing apparatus determines a destination of the frame based on destination address thereof and loops back the frame to the network driver if the frame is destined to another logical partition so that an interrupt is signaled to the network driver and the frame is transferred to the network driver using DMA, and the network driver delivers the frame received from the routing apparatus in loopback mode to another logical partition according to the destination address of the frame received from the routing apparatus.