A network communications system and method are disclosed. In at least one implementation, the network communications system includes a network appliance configured to receive from a client device via a client-side wide area network, an HTTP non-compliant request stream including one or more HTTP non-compliant requests formatted according to an HTTP non-compliant application level protocol. The network appliance is further configured to translate the one or more HTTP non-compliant requests of the HTTP non-compliant request stream from the HTTP non-compliant application level protocol into one or more HTTP compliant requests of an HTTP compliant request stream. The network appliance is further configured to forward the HTTP compliant request stream including the one or more HTTP compliant requests to one or more server devices via a server-side local area network.