Patent ID: 7346065

Claim:
A bridge apparatus comprising: a first device driver unit for controlling a first interface unit connected to a first network; a second device driver unit for controlling a second interface unit connected to a second network; a bridging unit for performing a bridging process; a middleware unit, inserted between the bridging unit and the first device driver unit, that includes a transmitter for performing priority processing for a relay of a frame from the bridging unit to the first device driver unit; a cache table in which session data having high priorities are preregistered; and a plurality of first FIFO queues corresponding to priorities, wherein the transmitter includes a header comparator for, upon the reception of a transmission request for the frame to be relayed from the bridging unit to the first device driver unit, searching the cache table and extracting a priority based on headers included in a second to a fourth OSI layer of the frame, and for adding the transmission request to one of the first FIFO queues in accordance with the priority that is extracted, and a synthesization unit for, in accordance with a priority for the first FIFO queue, outputting the transmission request from the first FIFO queue to the first device driver unit.