If an application on your PC is designed to talk directly to the serial device, but your computer doesn’t have a serial port available, you will need to create a virtual serial port, also known as a virtual COM port. It will effectively act as a serial to Ethernet converter locally on your computer by taking your serial data and making it available over a TCP/IP connection. This is often used in conjunction with a serial to Ethernet converter, which receives the application data sent by the PC over a network connection and passes it along to the serial device that it is connected to.