Patent ID: RE41811

Claim:
A method executing on a hardware computer for managing network access to a data communications network, said method comprising: maintaining a central database; maintaining at least one authentication, authorization and accounting (AAA) service at a point of presence (PoP) of the data communications network; and configuring a database associated with the AAA service from the central database, wherein said configuring includes publishing information from said central database on an information bus as at least one event, said AAA service subscribing to said event so as to receive said published information so as to thereby update its associated database ; further comprising: receiving at a protocol gateway in the PoP a network access request from a user through a network access server ( NAS ) ; parsing the network access request for an identification of the user's domain; routing the network access request to the AAA service at the PoP if the user's domain corresponds to that of the PoP; looking up a domain identification entry corresponding to the user's domain in the AAA service's database if the user's domain does not correspond to that of the PoP; proxying the network access request to an AAA service in the user's domain at an address and port as specified in the domain identification entry of the database if the user's domain does not correspond to that of the PoP .