Abstract: A method, system and apparatus for transferring data from one partition of a partitioned system to another without using a network are provided. When a first partition needs to transfer data to a second partition, it marks the data, which is located in its part of the system's partitioned memory, as a “read-only” data and indicates so to partitioned system's firmware or hardware. This indication is usually manifested by passing a pointer to the data, as well as the identification of the partition to receive the data to the firmware or hardware. Upon being notified, the firmware or hardware of the partitioned system re-assigns the memory locations containing the data to the second partition and passes the pointer to the second partition. As a measure of (redundant) security, the second partition checks to see whether the data is indeed a “read-only” data. If so, it reads the data, else it does not.

Abstract: A method, system and apparatus for maintaining a two-byte identification field of IP headers when a Gigabit Ethernet is in use are provided. Since the identification field is of two bytes, there is a limited number of identification numbers that may be used. Due to the high data transfer rate of the Gigabit Ethernet, this number may be reached within one second. Hence, there may be a possibility that two or more packets may have the same identification number while in transit. In a representative embodiment, one identification number is used for packets that may not be fragmented. Thus, freeing the rest of the numbers for the packets that may be fragmented. Consequently, before the IP header is added to the packet, a check is made to determine whether the packet may be fragmented. If so, a unique identification number is used in the identification field of the IP header. If not, a non-unique number is used. The non-unique number is used for all packets that may not be fragmented.