Patent ID: 8113418

Claim:
A networking method, comprising: receiving, from a requesting device, a first request for information regarding a virtual radio frequency identification (“RFID”) reader; translating the first request into second requests for data from a first plurality of devices aggregated as a first logical RFID reader, the first plurality of devices comprising a first plurality of controllers; wherein a plurality of physical RFID readers are associated with the first plurality of controllers by automatically updating a domain name server (DNS) entry of each of the plurality of RFID readers such that the DNS entry identifies a domain name of a corresponding one of the first plurality of controllers; wherein the first plurality of controllers are associated with one or more middleware servers by automatically updating domain name server (“DNS”) entries; sending at least one of the second requests to the first plurality of controllers; receiving RFID data from the first plurality of controllers responsive to the second requests; and sending at least some of the RFID data to the requesting device in response to the first request.