Patent ID: 7177952

Claim:
A method for switching between two different network access technologies on a networked hardware platform without interrupting an active network application, the platform sending outgoing data packets and receiving incoming data packets for the network application through one of at least two network adapters, the network adapters providing accesses to the network hardware platform for executing the network application, the method comprising the steps of: providing a network access arbitrator having a virtual anchor adapter driver; assigning a network adapter, wherein the network adapter is based on a first data link layer network access technology as a primary network adapter; detecting an active network adapter, wherein the active network adapter is based on the second data link layer network access technology; and configuring, by the network access arbitrator, the data packets generated by the active network application to continue the network application when the access to the network hardware platform is switched from the primary network adapter to the active network adapter driver, wherein the configuring includes changing a source hardware address of an outgoing data packet to a data link layer address of the active network adapter; and modifying a destination hardware address of an incoming data packet to that of the primary network adapter driver prior to sending the data packet to the network application; wherein the network application detects only the network arbitrator when accessing the networked hardware platform, and wherein the source and destination hardware addresses of the data packet are not changed if the primary network adapter is used.