Network interconnection without integration

US4677588A · kind A · utility

Assignee

• International Business Machines Corporation · US

Inventors

• Jay H. Benjamin · Kingston, US
• James P. Gray · Chapel Hill, US
• Royal C. Hayward · Cary, US
• Matthew L. Hess · Raleigh, US
• Frederick E. McGriff · Gechingen, DE
• Ellis L. Miller · Raleigh, US
• Robert WEINGARTEN · Highland Mills, US

Key dates

• Filing date: Nov 14, 1983
• Grant date: Jun 30, 1987
• Expiry date: Nov 14, 2003

Classification

• Technology area (CPC H): Electricity
• CPC primary: H04L9/40
• WIPO field: Digital communication
• WIPO sector: Electrical engineering

Abstract

A facility called "Gateway" is used to interconnect a plurality of independently controlled communication networks so that logical units (LUs) in the networks can communicate with one another without any changes to the network. The gateway includes a programmable device or devices which establish and monitor cross network sessions and for each formatted message, on the session, the programmable device changes the contents on the request unit (RU) and/or the transmission header (TH) fields so that data is delivered to a target LU. The changes include address translation within the TH field, and/or address and name translation within the RU field.