A method in an example embodiment includes modules for identifying an applet for a local network and providing instructions in a parent container file to enable operations that comprise rendering an inline web frame within a main web page, loading a source file in the inline web frame, adding a callback object to the inline web frame, and loading an interface file of the applet in the inline web frame. In particular, the loaded interface file can be configured to communicate with an entity associated with the local network by invoking the callback object. In specific embodiments, the inline web frame is hidden in the main web page. In more specific embodiments, the callback object contains one or more application programming interfaces (APIs). In further embodiments, the parent container file can include a hypertext markup language (HTML) document.