Patent ID: 8359384

Claim:
A method for communicating with a computer management device, the method comprising: transmitting first and second commands to the management device over a communications link, wherein the first and second commands conform to a first communication standard, wherein the first command is a vendor specific command for modifying configuration data associated with the management device or for obtaining coordinates of a user input cursor on a remote computer system that is connected to a host computer via the management device, wherein the second command is a storage operation command, and wherein the communications link conforms to a second communication standard; emulating, at the management device, a device accessible through the communications link, wherein the emulated device conforms to the second communication standard; receiving, at the management device, the first and second commands through a same interface of the communications link; determining whether the first and second commands are emulated device commands for communicating with the emulated device; and in response to determining that the first command is not an emulated device command for communicating with the emulated device, utilizing the received first command for communicating with the management device and utilizing data contained in the received first command to configure the management device; and in response to determining that the second command is for communicating with the emulated device, passing the second command to the emulated device.