Abstract: In an embodiment, a network adapter has a physical port that is multiplexed to multiple logical ports, which have default queues. The adapter also has other queues, which can be allocated to any logical port, and resources, which map tuples to queues. The tuples are derived from data in packets received via the physical port. The adapter determines which queue should receive a packet based on the received tuple and the resources. If the received tuple matches a resource, then the adapter stores the packet to the corresponding queue; otherwise, the adapter stores the packet to the default queue for the logical port specified by the packet. In response to receiving an allocation request from a requesting partition, if no resources are idle, a resource is selected for preemption that is already allocated to a selected partition. The selected resource is then allocated to the requesting partition.

Abstract: A method, device and system for configuring multifunction I/O device adapters connected to a bus utilizes a slot owner configuration register to identify the ownership of each function slot within the multi-function I/O device adapter. An intelligent I/O device adapter or controller within the multi-function I/O device adapter may control other I/O adapters located in other function slots through the information provided in the slot owner configuration register. Ownership of each slot is initially set, upon power up, to the host unit or processor complex. Thereafter, each intelligent I/O device adapter or controller determines the presence of adapters at other function slots to be controlled, and records this information in the slot owner configuration register.

Abstract: A computer system has a system memory, a central processing unit, an input/output controller, and at least one device. When the central processing unit wants data transferred to/from system memory from/to the device, it sends Indirect DAta Address Word (IDAW) commands to the I/O controller. Instead of performing a direct memory access (DMA) operation for each IDAW command, the I/O controller starts an IDAW look ahead procedure. In this procedure, the I/O controller checks to see if the system addresses of the system memory specified in the IDAW commands are contiguous. If so, the procedure combines IDAWs that specify contiguous system addresses up to the maximum DMA transfer length. Using this procedure, the number of DMA operations sent to the system memory is minimized, and the computer system has more efficient data transfer operations.