diff --git a/Makefile.objs b/Makefile.objs
index cd5a24b..2cf8aba 100644
--- a/Makefile.objs
+++ b/Makefile.objs
@@ -9,6 +9,8 @@ qobject-obj-y += qerror.o
 
 block-obj-y = cutils.o cache-utils.o qemu-malloc.o qemu-option.o module.o
 block-obj-y += nbd.o block.o aio.o aes.o osdep.o qemu-config.o
+block-obj-$(CONFIG_POSIX) += qemu-thread.o
+block-obj-$(CONFIG_POSIX) += qemu-threadlets.o
 block-obj-$(CONFIG_POSIX) += posix-aio-compat.o
 block-obj-$(CONFIG_LINUX_AIO) += linux-aio.o
 
@@ -124,7 +126,6 @@ endif
 common-obj-y += $(addprefix ui/, $(ui-obj-y))
 
 common-obj-y += iov.o acl.o
-common-obj-$(CONFIG_THREAD) += qemu-thread.o
 common-obj-y += notify.o event_notifier.o
 common-obj-y += qemu-timer.o
 
diff --git a/docs/async-support.txt b/docs/async-support.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..2e8adc9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/docs/async-support.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,141 @@
+== How to use the various asynchronous models supported in Qemu ==
+
+== Threadlets ==
+
+Q.1: What are threadlets ?
+A.1: Threadlets is an infrastructure within QEMU that allows other subsystems
+     to offload possibly blocking work to a queue to be processed by a pool
+     of threads asynchrnonously.
+
+Q.2: When would one want to use threadlets ?
+A.2: Threadlets are useful when there are operations that can be performed
+     outside the context of the VCPU/IO threads inorder to free these latter
+     to service any other guest requests.
+
+Q.3: I have some work that can be executed in an asynchronous context. How
+     should I go about it ?
+A.3: One could follow the steps listed below:
+
+     - Define a function which would do the asynchrnous work.
+	void my_threadlet_func(ThreadletWork *work)
+	{
+	}
+
+     - Declare an object of type ThreadletWork;
+	ThreadletWork work;
+
+
+     - Assign a value to the "func" member of ThreadletWork object.
+	work.func = my_threadlet_func;
+
+     - Submit the threadlet to the global queue.
+	submit_threadletwork(&work);
+
+     - Continue servicing some other guest operations.
+
+Q.4: I want to my_threadlet_func to access some non-global data. How do I do
+     that ?
+A.4: Suppose you want my_threadlet_func to access some non-global data-object
+     of type myPrivateData. In that case one could follow the following steps.
+
+     - Define a member of the type ThreadletWork within myPrivateData.
+	typdef myPrivateData {
+		...;
+		...;
+		...;
+		ThreadletWork work;
+	} myPrivateData;
+
+	myPrivateData myData;
+
+     - Initialize myData.work as described in A.3
+	myData.work.func = my_threadlet_func;
+	submit_threadletwork(&myData.work);
+
+     - Access the myData object inside my_threadlet_func() using container_of
+       primitive
+	void my_threadlet_func(ThreadletWork *work)
+	{
+		myPrivateData *mydata_ptr;
+		mydata_ptr = container_of(work, myPrivateData, work);
+
+		/* mydata_ptr now points to myData object */
+	}
+
+Q.5: Are there any precautions one must take while sharing data with the
+     Asynchrnous thread-pool ?
+A.5: Yes, make sure that the helper function of the type my_threadlet_func()
+     does not access/modify data when it can be accessed or modified in the
+     context of VCPU thread or IO thread. This is because the asynchronous
+     threads in the pool can run in parallel with the VCPU/IOThreads as shown
+     in the figure.
+
+     A typical workflow is as follows:
+
+              VCPU/IOThread
+                   |
+                   | (1)
+                   |
+                   V
+                Offload work              (2)
+      |-------> to threadlets -----------------------------> Helper thread
+      |            |                                               |
+      |            |                                               |
+      |            | (3)                                           | (4)
+      |            |                                               |
+      |         Handle other Guest requests                        |
+      |            |                                               |
+      |            |                                               V
+      |            | (3)                                  Signal the I/O Thread
+      |(6)         |                                               |
+      |            |                                              /
+      |            |                                             /
+      |            V                                            /
+      |          Do the post <---------------------------------/
+      |          processing               (5)
+      |            |
+      |            | (6)
+      |            V
+      |-Yes------ More async work?
+                   |
+                   | (7)
+	           No
+                   |
+                   |
+                   .
+                   .
+
+    Hence one needs to make sure that in the steps (3) and (4) which run in
+    parallel, any global data is accessed within only one context.
+
+Q.6: I have queued a threadlet which I want to cancel. How do I do that ?
+A.6: Threadlets framework provides the API cancel_threadlet:
+       - int cancel_threadletwork(ThreadletWork *work)
+
+     The API scans the ThreadletQueue to see if (work) is present. If it finds
+     work, it'll dequeue work and return 0.
+
+     On the other hand, if it does not find the (work) in the ThreadletQueue,
+     then it'll return 1. This can imply two things. Either the work is being
+     processed by one of the helper threads or it has been processed. The
+     threadlet infrastructure currently _does_not_ distinguish between these
+     two and the onus is on the caller to do that.
+
+Q.7: Apart from the global pool of threads, can I have my own private Queue ?
+A.7: Yes, the threadlets framework allows subsystems to create their own private
+     queues with associated pools of threads.
+
+     - Define a PrivateQueue
+       ThreadletQueue myQueue;
+
+     - Initialize it:
+       threadlet_queue_init(&myQueue, my_max_threads, my_min_threads);
+       where my_max_threads is the maximum number of threads that can be in the
+       thread pool and my_min_threads is the minimum number of active threads
+       that can be in the thread-pool.
+
+     - Submit work:
+       submit_threadletwork_to_queue(&myQueue, &my_work);
+
+     - Cancel work:
+       cancel_threadletwork_on_queue(&myQueue, &my_work);
diff --git a/qemu-threadlets.c b/qemu-threadlets.c
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..1442122
--- /dev/null
+++ b/qemu-threadlets.c
@@ -0,0 +1,169 @@
+/*
+ * Threadlet support for offloading tasks to be executed asynchronously
+ *
+ * Copyright IBM, Corp. 2008
+ * Copyright IBM, Corp. 2010
+ *
+ * Authors:
+ *  Anthony Liguori     <aliguori@us.ibm.com>
+ *  Aneesh Kumar K.V    <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
+ *  Gautham R Shenoy    <ego@in.ibm.com>
+ *
+ * This work is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL, version 2.  See
+ * the COPYING file in the top-level directory.
+ */
+
+#include "qemu-threadlets.h"
+#include "osdep.h"
+
+#define MAX_GLOBAL_THREADS  64
+#define MIN_GLOBAL_THREADS  64
+ThreadletQueue globalqueue;
+static int globalqueue_init;
+
+static void *threadlet_worker(void *data)
+{
+    ThreadletQueue *queue = data;
+
+    qemu_mutex_lock(&(queue->lock));
+    while (1) {
+        ThreadletWork *work;
+        int ret = 0;
+
+        while (QTAILQ_EMPTY(&(queue->request_list)) &&
+               (ret != ETIMEDOUT)) {
+            ret = qemu_cond_timedwait(&(queue->cond),
+					 &(queue->lock), 10*100000);
+        }
+
+        assert(queue->idle_threads != 0);
+        if (QTAILQ_EMPTY(&(queue->request_list))) {
+            if (queue->cur_threads > queue->min_threads) {
+                /* We retain the minimum number of threads */
+                break;
+            }
+        } else {
+            work = QTAILQ_FIRST(&(queue->request_list));
+            QTAILQ_REMOVE(&(queue->request_list), work, node);
+
+            queue->idle_threads--;
+            qemu_mutex_unlock(&(queue->lock));
+
+            /* execute the work function */
+            work->func(work);
+
+            qemu_mutex_lock(&(queue->lock));
+            queue->idle_threads++;
+        }
+    }
+
+    queue->idle_threads--;
+    queue->cur_threads--;
+    qemu_mutex_unlock(&(queue->lock));
+
+    return NULL;
+}
+
+static void spawn_threadlet(ThreadletQueue *queue)
+{
+    QemuThread thread;
+
+    queue->cur_threads++;
+    queue->idle_threads++;
+
+    qemu_thread_create(&thread, threadlet_worker, queue);
+}
+
+/**
+ * submit_threadletwork_to_queue: Submit a new task to a private queue to be
+ *                            executed asynchronously.
+ * @queue: Per-subsystem private queue to which the new task needs
+ *         to be submitted.
+ * @work: Contains information about the task that needs to be submitted.
+ */
+void submit_threadletwork_to_queue(ThreadletQueue *queue, ThreadletWork *work)
+{
+    qemu_mutex_lock(&(queue->lock));
+    if (queue->idle_threads == 0 && queue->cur_threads < queue->max_threads) {
+        spawn_threadlet(queue);
+    }
+    QTAILQ_INSERT_TAIL(&(queue->request_list), work, node);
+    qemu_mutex_unlock(&(queue->lock));
+    qemu_cond_signal(&(queue->cond));
+}
+
+/**
+ * submit_threadletwork: Submit to the global queue a new task to be executed
+ *                   asynchronously.
+ * @work: Contains information about the task that needs to be submitted.
+ */
+void submit_threadletwork(ThreadletWork *work)
+{
+    if (unlikely(!globalqueue_init)) {
+        threadlet_queue_init(&globalqueue, MAX_GLOBAL_THREADS,
+                                MIN_GLOBAL_THREADS);
+        globalqueue_init = 1;
+    }
+
+    submit_threadletwork_to_queue(&globalqueue, work);
+}
+
+/**
+ * cancel_threadletwork_on_queue: Cancel a task queued on a Queue.
+ * @queue: The queue containing the task to be cancelled.
+ * @work: Contains the information of the task that needs to be cancelled.
+ *
+ * Returns: 0 if the task is successfully cancelled.
+ *          1 otherwise.
+ */
+int cancel_threadletwork_on_queue(ThreadletQueue *queue, ThreadletWork *work)
+{
+    ThreadletWork *ret_work;
+    int found = 0;
+
+    qemu_mutex_lock(&(queue->lock));
+    QTAILQ_FOREACH(ret_work, &(queue->request_list), node) {
+        if (ret_work == work) {
+            QTAILQ_REMOVE(&(queue->request_list), ret_work, node);
+            found = 1;
+            break;
+        }
+    }
+    qemu_mutex_unlock(&(queue->lock));
+
+    if (found) {
+        return 0;
+    }
+
+    return 1;
+}
+
+/**
+ * cancel_threadletwork: Cancel a task queued on the global queue.
+ * @work: Contains the information of the task that needs to be cancelled.
+ *
+ * Returns: 0 if the task is successfully cancelled.
+ *          1 otherwise.
+ */
+int cancel_threadletwork(ThreadletWork *work)
+{
+    return cancel_threadletwork_on_queue(&globalqueue, work);
+}
+
+/**
+ * threadlet_queue_init: Initialize a threadlet queue.
+ * @queue: The threadlet queue to be initialized.
+ * @max_threads: Maximum number of threads processing the queue.
+ * @min_threads: Minimum number of threads processing the queue.
+ */
+void threadlet_queue_init(ThreadletQueue *queue,
+				    int max_threads, int min_threads)
+{
+    queue->cur_threads  = 0;
+    queue->idle_threads = 0;
+    queue->max_threads  = max_threads;
+    queue->min_threads  = min_threads;
+    QTAILQ_INIT(&(queue->request_list));
+    qemu_mutex_init(&(queue->lock));
+    qemu_cond_init(&(queue->cond));
+}
diff --git a/qemu-threadlets.h b/qemu-threadlets.h
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3df9b10
--- /dev/null
+++ b/qemu-threadlets.h
@@ -0,0 +1,48 @@
+/*
+ * Threadlet support for offloading tasks to be executed asynchronously
+ *
+ * Copyright IBM, Corp. 2008
+ * Copyright IBM, Corp. 2010
+ *
+ * Authors:
+ *  Anthony Liguori     <aliguori@us.ibm.com>
+ *  Aneesh Kumar K.V    <aneesh.kumar@linux.vnet.ibm.com>
+ *  Gautham R Shenoy    <ego@in.ibm.com>
+ *
+ * This work is licensed under the terms of the GNU GPL, version 2.  See
+ * the COPYING file in the top-level directory.
+ */
+
+#ifndef QEMU_ASYNC_WORK_H
+#define QEMU_ASYNC_WORK_H
+
+#include "qemu-queue.h"
+#include "qemu-common.h"
+#include "qemu-thread.h"
+
+typedef struct ThreadletQueue
+{
+    QemuMutex lock;
+    QemuCond cond;
+    int max_threads;
+    int min_threads;
+    int cur_threads;
+    int idle_threads;
+    QTAILQ_HEAD(, threadlet_work) request_list;
+} ThreadletQueue;
+
+typedef struct threadlet_work
+{
+    QTAILQ_ENTRY(threadlet_work) node;
+    void (*func)(struct threadlet_work *work);
+} ThreadletWork;
+
+extern void submit_threadletwork_to_queue(ThreadletQueue *queue,
+                                      ThreadletWork *work);
+extern void submit_threadletwork(ThreadletWork *work);
+extern int cancel_threadletwork_on_queue(ThreadletQueue *queue,
+                                        ThreadletWork *work);
+extern int cancel_threadletwork(ThreadletWork *work);
+extern void threadlet_queue_init(ThreadletQueue *queue, int max_threads,
+                                 int min_threads);
+#endif
