Patent ID: 9621509
Date: 2017-04-11
CPC Classifications: H04L

Claim:
1. A method for segmenting network traffic using virtual media access control (vMAC) addresses, comprising: establishing, by a device intermediary to a plurality of clients and a plurality of servers, a plurality of traffic domains to segment network traffic; generating, by the device, a plurality of virtual media access control (vMAC) addresses to assign to the plurality of traffic domains; assigning, by the device, to each of the plurality of traffic domains, a respective vMAC address of the generated vMAC addresses that includes an identifier of a traffic domain corresponding to the traffic domain to which the vMAC address is assigned; receiving, by the device from a second device, an address resolution protocol (ARP) request to determine a media access control (MAC) address to transmit data packets, the ARP request identifying an internet protocol (IP) address assigned to one of the traffic domains; identifying, by the device, using the IP address identified by the ARP request, the traffic domain of the plurality of traffic domains to which the IP address included in the ARP request is assigned; selecting, by the device, from the plurality of virtual MAC addresses, the virtual MAC address assigned to the traffic domain to use as the MAC address in a response to the ARP request based on the IP address identified via the ARP request; transmitting, by the device to the second device, the response to the ARP request, the response identifying as the MAC address the selected vMAC address of the traffic domain to which the IP address identified in the ARP request is assigned.