Importance

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Abstract

A method and apparatus for routing data through a network when the data is originally free of source and destination addresses is provided. A secondary router is interconnected to one or more polling hosts and a primary router is interconnected to a group of remote panels that generate status responses to the polling requests of the hosts. The hosts and panels are adapted normally to communicate via direct telephone interconnections in a security protocol that is generally free of data addresses. Communication occurs in an asynchronous manner. The routers are adapted to provide network layer source and destination addresses for transfer of the security polls and responses over the network based upon known information about the polling hosts and remote panels embedded in the security protocol data. Since the protocol is generally free of data regarding the polling host in the response, the primary router stores data related to the polling host for appending to the response as it is returned to the network to the secondary router. This host identity data is contained in a tunnel layer segment that is appended to the packet between the protocol layer segment and network layer segment. Using this host identity layer, the secondary router can forward the response back to the original polling host.

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First Claim