COMMUNICATION OF LOCAL AREA NETWORK BASED APPLICATIONS ON A SWITCHED NETWORK

摘要

A plurality of media access control drivers are coupledto and provide a respective channel to connect a computerand the switched network. Each media access control driverhas a first mode in which a connection is established in theswitched network and a second mode in which the local areanetwork protocol is passed over the switched network. Themedia access control drivers may also be placed in a thirdand fourth mode which allow communication in an unformattedand non-LAN based protocol. The architecture also includesat least one port connection manager which manages one ofthe channels when the respective media access control driveris in the first mode and a connection manager to manage astatus of the connection. The media access control driversare coupled to a protocol driver to send messages in thelocal area network protocol when the media access controldrivers are in the second mode. Each of the media accesscontrol drivers include a table of parameters which describethe channel and a set of entry points to the channel. Aprotocol manager catalogs the tables for use by othermodules.