In one embodiment, a network device connected to an Internet Protocol (IP) network and a serial network scans an infrastructure of the serial network. Based on the scanning, the network device can determine one or more serial endpoints within the serial network infrastructure, and may then allocate an IP address to each of the one or more serial endpoints. The network device may then map received IP network traffic into serial protocol commands on the serial network for a destination serial endpoint having an allocated IP address corresponding to a destination IP address of the received IP network traffic, and may also bridge data present on the serial network from a sourcing serial endpoint into an IP message on the IP network with an indication of a corresponding allocated IP address of the sourcing serial endpoint, accordingly.