Technique for maintaining prioritization of data transferred among heterogeneous nodes of a computer network

A computer readable medium containing executable program instructions for maintaining priority of packets transmitted over a plurality of communication sessions of a first network in a heterogeneous network, the executable program instructions comprising instructions for:

• assigning packets respective transmission priority (TP) levels at an Advanced Peer to Peer Networking (APPN) layer as the packets traverse protocol layers of a communications stack of a hybrid node coupled to the first network, said packets being received by the hybrid node from a second network in the heterogeneous network, said packets being associated with a particular connection for transmitting said packets in said second network;
• distributing the packets among the plurality of communication sessions at a Data Link Switching (DLSw) layer coupled to the APPN layer based on the respective TP level assigned to each packet;
• and
• transmitting the packets over the communication sessions based upon said distributing to a switching node so as to preserve the priority and order of the packets across the heterogeneous network.