US Patent 7900016 Full virtualization of resources across an IP interconnect

An addressing model is provided where all resources, including memory and devices, are addressed with internet protocol (IP) addresses. A task, such as an application, may be assigned a range of IP addresses rather than an effective address range. Thus, a processing element, such as an I/O adapter or even a printer, for example, may also be addressed using IP addresses without the need for library calls, device drivers, pinning memory, and so forth. This addressing model also provides full virtualization of resources across an IP interconnect, allowing a process to access an I/O device across a network.