NETWORK ADDRESS TRANSLATION BASED ON RECORDED APPLICATION STATE

A method and system for improved NAT operation enable efficient translation for packets destined for communication systems within a domain utilizing network addresses that are incompatible with source and destination addresses indicated in packets delivered from the global Internet. Since the addresses are not compatible with global Internet addresses, delivery cannot be accomplished except by some method of address translation. Traditional systems have not been constructed to enable such inbound translations, providing, instead, only communication outbound from the incompatibly addressed domain towards the global Internet. Embodiments may employ application-specific knowledge for peer-to-peer based applications, associated over time with specific destinations. Embodiments may further employ an application-specific state machine in the NAT function to trace the development of the application protocol so that the resource identifier can be observed.