Network adaptor card with reverse proxy and cache and method implemented therewith

An adapter card for managing connections between clients and a network server off-loads the connection management burden from the server. The adapter card includes a memory with an embedded proxy application and a communication protocol stack, a processing unit for executing the application code, a network controller for interfacing with an internetwork, and a bus protocol bridge for interfacing with the internal bus of the network server. The proxy application receives client requests on behalf of the server over relatively slow and unreliable network connections, and submits the requests to the server over fast, reliable bus connections. A proxy cache provides storage for server responses, so that the proxy application can provide the stored responses to clients without re-accessing the server. Buffers are allocated to a particular client connection only after it is determined that data will be exchanged between the server and the client.