Mechanism for enabling layer two host addresses to be shielded from the switches in a network
US7957374B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Oct 22, 2008 |
| Grant date | Jun 7, 2011 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 16, 2029 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L2101/622
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A mechanism is disclosed that enables layer two host addresses (e.g. a MAC addresses) to be shielded from a network. In one implementation, the mechanism updates each packet sent by the hosts into the network to indicate that the source layer two (L2) address for that packet is a shared L2 address instead of the actual L2 address of the sending host. By doing so, the mechanism exposes only the shared L2 address to the network, and shields the actual L2 addresses of the hosts from the network. The effect of this is that the switches in the network will need to store only the shared L2 address in their forwarding tables, not the actual L2 addresses of the hosts. By reducing the number of L2 addresses that need to be stored in the forwarding tables of the switches, the mechanism improves the scalability of the network.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.