Patent attributes
A network adapter includes one or more network ports, multiple bus interfaces and a processor. The network ports are configured to communicate with a communication network. The bus interfaces are configured to communicate with multiple respective CPUs of a multi-CPU device. The processor is included in the network adapter and is configured to support an Option-ROM functionality, in which the network adapter holds Option-ROM program instructions that are loadable and executable by the multi-CPU device during a boot process, to expose the support of the Option-ROM functionality to the multi-CPU device over only a single bus interface, selected from among the multiple bus interfaces, and, by loading the Option-ROM program instructions to the multi-CPU device, to cause the multi-CPU device to present to a user only a single, non-redundant set of commands for managing all the multiple bus interfaces of the network adapter via the single bus interface.
