Patent ID: 8572677

Claim:
A system for enabling reconfiguration of one or more services supported by a network of one or more devices, the system comprising: (a) a communication network; (b) a set of one or more devices coupled to the communication network wherein the set of one or more devices includes a primary server and one or more secure access nodes (c) each of the devices having: (i) one or more communication interfaces that includes an administrative user interface wherein at least one of the one or more communication interfaces is coupled to the communication network; (ii) one or more processors; (iii) one or more storage devices coupled to the one or more processors; (iv) one or more software applications stored in the one or more storage devices and executed by the one or more processors; (v) one or more virtual machines generated and configured by one or more software applications executed by the one or more processors and stored in the one or more storage devices, each virtual machine implementing a functional stack with a corresponding operating system, the functional stack supporting one or more services and capable of being reconfigured dynamically in real-time; (vi) a common layer generated and configured by one or more software applications executed by the one or more processors and stored in the one or more storage devices, the common layer having a common operating system and common security functions that segregate services supported by each functional stack on each virtual machine and minimize cross-service interference between services supported by each functional stack on each virtual machine during normal operation and the reconfiguration of one or more functional stacks wherein the common operating system includes a common kernel that receives instructions from one or more software functions on the device and controls hardware resources, wherein the hardware resources include the one or more processors, the one or more storage devices, one or more input/output resources, and one or more display components; (vii) wherein each device includes a gateway function providing basic network interface functions for the device that includes a gateway operating system, gateway security functions, gateway data mining functions, and set of gateway software applications that support the gateway function.