1. A method comprising: executing a graphical program on a computer system, wherein the graphical program includes a plurality of interconnected nodes that visually indicate functionality of the graphical program, wherein the graphical program executes within a graphical program execution environment; wherein the plurality of interconnected nodes includes a first one or more nodes and a second one or more nodes, wherein the first one or more nodes are configured to generate a reference to an external memory buffer in memory of the computer system, wherein the external memory buffer is external to the graphical program execution environment, wherein said executing the graphical program comprises the first one or more nodes executing to generate the reference to the external memory buffer; wherein the first one or more nodes are connected to the second one or more nodes, wherein said executing the graphical program further comprises the second one or more nodes executing to receive the reference to the external memory buffer and natively access the external memory buffer to store data in the external memory buffer; wherein the method further comprises executing a consumer program concurrently with the graphical program, wherein the consumer program executes to access the data in the external memory buffer.