Patent ID: 8537844

Claim:
A gateway apparatus comprising: a buffer manager to verify a characteristic of a data packet received via an Ethernet interface, and to thereby select a buffer for storing the data packet, and to store the data packet in the selected buffer; a packet scheduler to extract a data packet from the buffer according to a predetermined policy; a packet distributor to verify a destination address of the extracted data packet, and to thereby obtain serial interface information associated with at least one target apparatus to which the extracted data packet is transmitted; and a serial communication unit to transmit the extracted data packet to the at least one target apparatus via a corresponding serial interface based on the serial interface information, wherein the buffer manager stores the data packet in an overwritable buffer or a non-overwritable buffer according to the characteristic of the data packet, wherein the non-overwritable buffer is configured into a first-in-first-out (FIFO) form, wherein in storing the data packet in the overwritable buffer, the buffer manager sets and maintains a number of buffers using at least one of a destination IP address, a UDP port number, a TCP port number, and a transmission end address.