Patent ID: 8112796

Claim:
A method performed by an edge proxy server having a central processing unit for federating a network in a clearinghouse federation mode, comprising: receiving a list of trusted entities; receiving by the central processing unit a message from a sending computing device, the message indicating a recipient; upon receiving the message from the sending computing device, determining whether the recipient indicated by the message is associated with a trusted entity specified by the received list; if the recipient indicated by the message is associated with a trusted entity specified by the received list, identifying a computing device associated with the trusted entity as a next hop for the received message and forwarding the message to the identified computing device associated with the trusted entity; and if the recipient indicated by the message is not associated with a trusted entity specified by the received list, forwarding the received message to a clearinghouse server so that the clearinghouse server can identify a next hop for the message so that the message can be forwarded to the recipient specified in the message, the next hop identifying a computing device to which the message will be routed next, the clearinghouse server configured to enable federation of networks, thereby causing the sending computing device and the recipient to establish a session in which subsequent messages do not transit the clearinghouse server.