Patent ID: 7555567

Claim:
A converter for communicating workstation and video data between (1) a workstation having an associated unique workstation Internet Protocol (IP) address and a workstation network port communicating with a common IP network using the unique workstation IP address and (2) one server of a plurality of servers, each server having its own unique server IP address and unique server network port providing communication with each other server across the common IP network, the converter for the one server comprising: a network interface facility having an associated unique converter IP address and a converter IP network port communicatively coupling the converter via the unique converter IP address to the common IP network and thereby to the workstation network port via the unique workstation IP address, the network interface facility receiving the workstation data from the workstation via the common IP network in a packet-switched format; a conversion facility to accept the workstation data from the workstation in the packet-switched format and to convert the workstation data to a native server format; a communication channel isolated from the common IP network and communicatively coupling the converter to the one server, said communication channel coupling the workstation data in the native server format between the converter and an input port of the server off of the common IP network, wherein: the conversion facility further to accept the video data from the server via the communication channel in a native video format and converting the video data to a packet-switched format; the network interface facility further receiving the video data in the packet-switched format from the conversion facility and transmitting the video data in the racket-switched format to the workstation via the common IP network using the unique workstation IP address.