receives the BOOTP response, it sends a BOOTP reply to the network server. The BOOTP reply includes a new network address for the port of the network server. The above procedure is repeated for each port of the network server. Thus each of the network server is reassigned with a new network address. In this way, reassignment of IP addresses of network servers is more efficiently performed. Furthermore, the work efforts are substantially reduced and are centralized.

Example (2): International Business Machines Corporation—System for checking status of supported functions of communication platforms at pre-selected intervals in order to allow hosts to obtain updated list of all supported functions.

An apparatus for dynamically providing a host information about all functions supported by a communication platform provided in a computing network environment. The computing network environment also has a gateway device besides the associated communication platform, which can be of any specific type, as well as at least having an initiating host and at least one receiving host that are electronically connected to the gateway device. The apparatus comprises a special function table for storing all possibly available functions that can be provided for all available commercial communication platforms as well as a memory location accessible by said gateway device for storing said special function table. Determining means then will obtain a list of all supported functions provided by said particularly associated communication platform and through the use of a comparison component provides information about all supported functions in the same special function table. All supported functions are then checked by a monitoring component to modify the function table in case of additions or deletions. In this manner, any host can obtain an updated list of all available and supported functions at any time and even select an option from the list if desired.