US Patent 7620955 High-performance virtual machine networking

One embodiment is a method for transferring data packets from a virtual computer having a virtual network interface device to a destination over a network, the method includes: (a) storing two or more guest address pointers associated with the data packets in a guest network transmission queue prior to handling the data packets; (b) the virtual network interface device converting the two or more guest address pointers to physical address pointers, and storing the physical address pointers in a physical network transmission queue; and (c) transferring the data packets from the virtual machine of the virtual computer over the network via a physical network interface device based on the physical address pointers in the physical network transmission queue.