Patent ID: 7706316

Claim:
A method to encapsulate a network interface within a networked environment, comprising: determining, by a data path processor, that a received network packet is associated with a non installed network protocol and that network packet is being communicated in an unrecognized protocol associated with the non installed network protocol by inspecting a received packet header associated with the received network packet and determining that the data path processor cannot process the received packet header and the received network packet because the received packet header is in an unrecognized data format that the data path processor does not recognize; and forwarding, by the data path processor, the network packet to a control path processor over a network for processing, and wherein the control path processor recognizes the unrecognized protocol of the received network packet on behalf of the data path processor and the control path processor processes the unrecognized protocol on behalf of the data path processor, and wherein the data path processor encapsulates the received network packet with another header that the data path processor does recognize and wherein the header identifies the data path processor to the control path processor, and wherein the non installed protocol is in a format associated with Gigabit Ethernet (GigE), Fibre-Channel (FC), Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM), Time Division Multiplexing (TDM), and Frame Relay (FR), and wherein results associated with the control path processor processing the unrecognized protocol are sent back to the data path processor for processing in a format recognized by the data path processor.