Patent ID: 7788407

Claim:
A method by which an application level gateway reference translator in a first network modifies an application data structure for sending to a computer system in a second network, the second network coupled to the first network by a gateway computer system, the application data structure comprising a local reference to a computer system in the first network, the local reference being local to the first network, the method comprising: determining whether a mapping entry for the local reference has been established in a reference translation data structure of the application level gateway reference translator; if the mapping entry has not been established, then invoking a computer system identifier negotiation protocol at the application level gateway reference translator to request a computer system identifier from the gateway computer system, the computer system identifier being associated with the local reference in the gateway computer system, and upon receiving the computer system identifier at the application level gateway reference translator from the gateway computer system, storing the computer system identifier in association with the local reference to create the mapping entry in the reference translation data structure of the application level gateway reference translator; obtaining the computer system identifier from the mapping entry based on the local reference from the application data structure, the application data structure comprising a first web site construct served by a web server computer system in the first network, the local reference comprising a portion of a uniform resource locator (URL), wherein the URL is included in the web site construct and identifies the computer system in the first network that serves a portion of data identified by the uniform resource locator; replacing the local reference in the application data structure with a translated reference to create a modified application data structure, the translated reference including the computer system identifier and an external address of the gateway computer system, the external address being accessible from the second network, the modified application data structure comprising a second web site construct; and sending the modified application data structure to the computer system in the second network.