Patent ID: 8280945

Claim:
A method comprising: moving at least one of a plurality of agents from a first device of a network to a target device of the network, the at least one of the agents for providing specific application layer gateway functionality on the target device, said moving initiated upon detection of a condition requiring the application layer gateway functionality at the target device, wherein the at least one agent is a software object instantiated via an object-oriented programming language, and the at least one agent includes a permissions list, wherein the at least one agent is only permitted access to resources on a device where the at least one agent is currently located based on information in the permissions list; identifying allowable resources for the at least one of the agents on the target device from the permissions list; and the at least one of the agents utilizing the allowable resources on the target device to function as the specific application layer gateway functionality on the target device, wherein the application layer gateway functionality is selected from the group consisting of manipulating, modifying, filtering, sourcing and sinking data between the first device and the target device.