Patent ID: 7577957

Claim:
A method of providing multiple jobs for a first communication device that exchanges data with a second communication device, comprising: providing a plurality of device records, wherein each of the device records corresponds to the first communication device; providing a plurality of job records for at least one of the device records as a corresponding device record, wherein each of the job records contains at least some information that is also provided in the corresponding device record, and wherein at least one of the job records corresponds to tasks performed in connection with exchanging data between the first communication device and the second communication device; linking the job records and the corresponding device record; accessing any one of the job records by first accessing the corresponding device record, wherein jobs corresponding to the job records associated with the corresponding device record are serviceable by different adapters that access the corresponding device record, and wherein at least one of the jobs is serviced by one of the different adapters accessing a particular job record for the at least one of the jobs via accessing the corresponding device record, the different adapters that access the corresponding device record being linked to the particular job record corresponding to the at least one of the jobs, and then the one of the different adapters servicing the at least one of the jobs; and providing one of a plurality of shared pointers in each of the job records and the corresponding device record, wherein all of the shared pointers point to the corresponding device record.