Patent ID: 7865597

Claim:
A method designed to implement a networking platform, also called a Network Application Infrastructure, with the goal of supporting and facilitating the development, deployment and management of device network applications that rely on it as middleware, comprising: running a network platform on a computer network, where said network platform has an Application Services module, a Management Services module, a Database Services module, and a Smart Network Services module; where said Application Services module is comprised of Deployment Services providing tools for installation, uninstallation, configuration, and status monitoring of applications within the network platform; Gateway Interface Services which translate an applications' generic interface to appear to devices as having specific interface to each line of said devices; where the Management Services runs device management tasks, and is comprised of Coordination and transactional services which ensure all actions performed on data within the network platform are whole transactions, and insure the proper completion, and reversal, of said transactions; the Entity Management Services which manages the devices belonging to the platform infrastructure; the Application Management Services which handles the activation, deactivation, upgrades of applications, hosting of multiple application versions, and the access to system resources; the Logging Management Services which registers all events and transactions occurring in any layer; Integration Services, which handles the inter-process communication channels among applications; where the Smart Network Services controls network services associated to controllers, drivers, and devices, and is comprised of Basic Network Services which process communication to enable the platform to communicate with all supported devices; Global Addressing which controls routing device-to-device communications across networks; Protocol Morphing which provides protocol transparency to enable addressing and data transfers to and from devices with different communications protocols; and Device Functionality Emulation Services, which emulates the desired device functionality to devices having limited processing capabilities; and where the Database Services module controls data storage, access and manipulation, storing all data and the administrative and structural configuration of the platform and executes all data queries and modifications to databases by means of an abstract object-relational layer and meta-data definitions about the objects being stored.