Patent ID: 7630398

Claim:
A method for bridging a first network and a second network, comprising: receiving a network packet from a first network interface card (NIC) of a first computer system coupled to a second computer system, the network packet received from the second computer system; invoking a protocol application programming interface (API) operation, the protocol API operation operable to deliver the network packet to an application program executing on the first computer system; and translating the protocol API operation into a miniport API operation associated with a second NIC of the first computer system coupled to a third computer system to deliver the network packet to the second NIC and thereafter to the third computer system without first delivering the network packet to the application program, wherein the translating includes using functions provided in a network driver interface specification (NDIS), the NDIS to provide drivers associated with the first and second NICs and a driver associated with the protocol API with a standardized interface with which to communicate, and the translating is performed by a subnet independent (SI) bridge software program (SI bridge).