A host system is provided with one or more host-fabric adapters installed
therein for connecting to a switched fabric of a data network. The
host-fabric adapter may comprise a Micro-Engine (ME) arranged to
establish connections and support data transfers via a switched fabric; a
host interface arranged to receive and transmit host data transfer
requests, in the form of descriptors, from the host system for data
transfers, and incorporated therein a host interface Hardware Assist
(HWA) mechanism configured to pre-process host descriptors for descriptor
format errors in parallel with descriptor fetches so as to offload the
Micro-Engine (ME) from exclusively checking for descriptor format errors;
a serial interface arranged to receive and transmit data packets from the
switched fabric for data transfers; and a first-in/first-out (FIFO)
interface arranged to receive and transmit data packets to/from the
switched fabric via the serial interface, and incorporated therein a
Protection Index and Offset Hardware Assist (HWA) mechanism configured to
process the Virtual Address (VA) and Memory Handle (MH) of data packets
and generate therefrom a Protection Index (PI) and Offset so as to
offload said Micro-Engine (ME) from exclusively processing data packets
for data transfers.