Cisco Technology, Inc.

Richard M Pruss

Eric Albin Voit

Jan Medved

Shuxian Lou

Adam Laurence Taylor

Jason Pfeifer

Ian Michael Cotton

Mark C Willis

John E Mcdowall

John Mcdowall

John Edward Mcdowall

This invention provides for an apparatus and method to associate a subscriber with one of many port bundles in an aggregation device. The method reserves one of the port bundles for the subscriber if the subscriber was not assigned a port bundle, changes the original source port number in a data packet to a port bundle number, modifies the subscriber address to an assigned aggregation address, and issues a request to a remote management device for authentication of the subscriber. Once a response is received from the management device including the authentication or unauthentication of the subscriber, the subscriber is mapped with the reserved port bundle in a port bundle object and the reserved port bundle is then assigned to the subscriber. The apparatus has at least one source port to receive a data packet, several port bundles coupled to the source port, each port bundle having a memory with a port bundle object to associate the subscriber with one of the port bundles, a processor coupled to the port bundles, and an output port coupled to the processor.

Port-bundle host-key mechanism

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Los Gatos, CA, United States of America

Richard M Pruss