Patent ID: 8619776

Claim:
A networking device comprising: a hardware unit interposed between a host processor and a network layer, the hardware unit including at least one processor; and computer program instructions executable by said at least one processor, said computer program instructions including: a transmission control protocol (TCP) module, wherein said TCP module implements a TCP specification to transmit and receive data to and from the host processor; a user datagram protocol (UDP) module, wherein said UDP module implements a UDP specification to transmit and receive data to and from the host processor; a file transfer protocol (FTP) module, wherein said FTP module implements a FTP specification to transmit and receive data to and from the host processor; and a negative-acknowledgment oriented reliable multicast (NORM) module, wherein said NORM module implements a NORM protocol specification to transmit and receive data to and from the network layer; wherein said NORM module further translates at least one of TCP, UDP and FTP data transmissions into NORM data transmissions; and wherein said NORM module further translates NORM data transmissions into at least one of TCP, UDP and FTP data transmissions.