Patent ID: 9419881
Filing Date: 2016-08-16
CPC Classification: G06F,H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method of facilitating communications within a processing environment, said method comprising: monitoring, for a predefined amount of time, inbound traffic and outbound traffic on a virtual interface of the processing environment, wherein the monitoring comprises recording an indication of one or more inbound frames in an inbound counter and an indication of one or more outbound frames, if any, in an outbound counter; determining based on the monitoring whether for a selected component of the virtual interface an inbound frame has been received on the virtual interface but no outbound frame has been transmitted on the virtual interface to an external network device for the predefined amount of time, the determining comprising checking the inbound counter and the outbound counter, wherein the inbound counter is associated with a connection identifier of the virtual interface based on a scope of the monitoring being an interface scope in which inbound traffic and outbound traffic associated with the connection identifier are monitored, or the inbound counter is associated with a particular address of the virtual interface based on the scope of the monitoring being an address scope in which inbound traffic and outbound traffic associated with the particular address of the virtual interface are monitored; and based on determining that the inbound frame has been received on the virtual interface but no outbound frame has been transmitted on the virtual interface for the predefined amount of time, forwarding a generated outbound frame to cause a refresh of address registration information for the virtual interface to ensure that the address registration information is maintained.