Patent ID: 7596146

Claim:
A computer program product comprising: a first set of instructions, executable on a computer system, configured to determine a packet protocol for a payload packet; a second set of instructions, executable on said computer system, configured to select a first mapping function configured to map from said packet protocol to a transport packet protocol, wherein said selecting is performed using a universal transport interface protocol, and said universal transport interface protocol comprises mapping functions for a plurality of payload packet protocols; a third set of instructions, executable on said computer system, configured to map a field of said payload packet to a field of a transport packet using said first mapping function; a fourth set of instructions, executable on said computer system, configured to add overhead information to said transport packet comprising a designation of said packet protocol of the payload packet; a fifth set of instructions, executable on said computer system, configured to select a second mapping function configured to map from said transport packet protocol to the packet protocol, wherein said second mapping function comprises one of said first mapping function and an inverse of said first mapping function; a sixth set of instructions, executable on said computer system, configured to map said transport packet to a second payload packet using said second mapping function; and computer readable media, wherein the plural sets of instructions are encoded in said computer readable media.