Patent ID: 8457034

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a node configured on an aircraft that communicates using a native communication protocol, the node comprising: a memory comprising: an information conversion system configured to: receive information formatted according to the native communication protocol from a communication device; encapsulate the information in one or more packets according to a common communication protocol that is readable by one or more other nodes configured on one or more other aircraft; store the one or more packets in a mass storage device that is coupled to the node; the mass storage device coupled to the information conversion system and comprises a metadata record associated with the one or more packets; a message oriented middleware infrastructure coupled to the information conversion system and configured to: publish the one or more packets for receipt by a node of the one or more other nodes; subscribe to one or more other packets stored at a node of the one or more other nodes; asynchronously communicate the one or more packets to a node of the one or more other nodes; an ontology combining engine coupled to the information conversion system and configured to: generate metadata associated with the received information; and store the metadata in the mass storage device; a service oriented architecture (SOA) infrastructure coupled to the information conversion system and configured to: discover information stored in the one or more packets according to its associated metadata record in the mass storage device; and automatically transmit the discovered one or more packets for receipt by a node of the one or more other nodes, wherein the message oriented middleware infrastructure comprises a Java messaging system (JMS) portion and a data distribution service (DDS) portion in combination provide quality of service and class of service parameters for use with time critical procedures, wherein the JMS provides handling of autonomous requests and the DDS provides controlled latency of response to the request.