Patent ID: 8862684

Claim:
An Internet-accessible gateway to facilitate communications between a client computer and a host computer, comprising: a processor; code adapted to be executed by the processor, comprising: code to establish a secure connection between the host computer and the gateway; code to establish a secure connection between the client computer and the gateway; code to transfer application-level commands and data through a communication path between the host computer and the client computer through the gateway to initiate a remote access operation with respect to the host computer, the application-level commands and data being transferred through the communication path when a direct connection cannot be established between the host computer and the client computer; and code operative as the application-level commands and data are being passed through the communication path to attempt, based at least in part on a port prediction, to establish a peer-to-peer connection associated with the client computer and the host computer so that further application-level commands and data associated with the remote access operation can be sent between the client computer and host computer directly instead of over the communication path if and when the peer-to-peer connection is established; the code to transfer application-level commands and data through the communication path continuing to be used to carry out the remote access operation if the peer-to-peer connection cannot be established.