Patent ID: 8031627

Claim:
A server for association with a router, comprising: a filter to receive an Internet Protocol (IP) packet from the router and to identify the IP packet as a production IP packet or a non-production IP packet; a packet modifier to manipulate data within an experimental header of the non-production IP packet to test an experimental protocol associated with the experimental header, the packet modifier to manipulate the data by at least one of: analyzing the data; modifying at least one of a source address IP address field, a destination IP address field, a time to live field, a type of service field, a protocol field, or application data within the non-production IP packet; terminating the non-production IP packet; monitoring the non-production IP packet; and processing the non-production IP packet; a processor to generate a second non-production IP packet, and to determine whether to transmit the manipulated non-production IP packet and the second non-production IP packet; a route selector to determine a destination to receive the manipulated and the second non-production IP packets; and a switch transmitter communicatively coupled to the router to transmit the production IP packet back to the router and to transmit the manipulated and the second non-production IP packets back to the router.