The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 24, 2002
Filed:
Oct. 22, 1999
Dennis M. Wiedeman, Cedar Park, TX (US);
Eugene Baker, Austin, TX (US);
Dwayne R. Potter, Round Rock, TX (US);
Richard Amberg, Austin, TX (US);
Dell USA, L.P., Round Rock, TX (US);
Abstract
Method and apparatus for dynamically connecting a system under test (“SUT”) to and disconnecting an SUT from a private VLAN in a computer manufacturing environment is described. In a preferred embodiment, each time an SUT disposed in a burn rack boots up, a VLAN-capable switch (hereinafter “CAT”) connected thereto checks the media access control (“MAC”) address of the SUT against a MAC address-to-VLAN correlation table (“MAC-VLAN table”). If the SUT's MAC address is not listed in the MAC-VLAN table, the CAT connects the SUT to a predefined default VLAN; i.e., the manufacturer's main manufacturing network. If the SUT's MAC address is included in the MAC-VLAN table, there is a private VLAN associated with the SUT and the CAT connects the SUT to the associated VLAN in a conventional fashion, at which point custom configuration can be performed as needed on the private VLAN.