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.

Date of Patent:
Nov. 29, 2016

Filed:

Feb. 14, 2014
Applicant:

Force10 Networks, Inc, San Jose, CA (US);

Inventors:

Janardhanan P. Narasimhan, Chennai, IN;

Krishnamurthy Subramanian, Mountain View, CA (US);

Thayumanavan Sridhar, Sunnyvale, CA (US);

Assignee:

Dell Products L.P., Round Rock, TX (US);

Attorney:
Primary Examiner:
Int. Cl.
CPC ...
H04L 12/28 (2006.01); H04L 12/741 (2013.01); H04L 12/931 (2013.01); H04L 12/947 (2013.01);
U.S. Cl.
CPC ...
H04L 45/74 (2013.01); H04L 49/25 (2013.01); H04L 49/351 (2013.01); H04L 49/70 (2013.01);
Abstract

A LAN includes a CORE switch, some number of TOR switches, each linked to the CORE switch, and each of the TOR switches are linked directly to some number of host devices. Each of the switches in the LAN operate to process and transmit data frames they receive from neighboring LAN devices. Each TOR switch in the LAN builds and maintains a layer-2 forwarding table that is comprised of MAC address information learned from frames they receive from neighboring LAN devices. Selected ports/VLAN s on some or all of the TOR devices are designated to be CORE/switch facing ports (CFP) or host facing ports (HFP). Each of the CFPs are configured to only learn the MAC address in unicast frames it receives and each of the HFPs can be configured to learn the MAC address of both unicast and multicast data frames provided the destination MAC address included in the unicast frame is known.


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