Patent ID: 7289975

Claim:
A communications system comprising: a plurality of data storage devices storing data based upon at least one of a plurality of different operating protocols; a plurality of mobile wireless communications devices each accessing said data storage devices based upon at least one of the plurality of different operating protocols; and a protocol interface device comprising a front-end proxy module communicating with said plurality of mobile wireless communications devices based upon respective operating protocols, a protocol engine module communicating with said front-end proxy module, a respective interface connector module translating communications between said protocol engine module and said plurality of data storage devices for each of the different operating protocols, and a data store for storing supported operating protocols for each of said data storage devices and protocol capability ranking metrics for the operating protocols based upon a number of supported protocol features, said protocol engine module cooperating with said data store for selecting a supported operating protocol for accessing each of said data storage devices based upon the protocol capability ranking metrics.