Patent ID: 8194674
Filing Date: 2012-06-05
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A data transmission method comprising: receiving a first frame at a first port of a switch having a plurality of ports, wherein: ascertaining, at the switch, by virtue of the first frame having been received at the first port, that the first virtual machine is assigned to the first VLAN, wherein the ascertaining that the first virtual machine is assigned to the first VLAN is performed by the switch because the first frame does not have a VLAN tag that identifies the VLAN to which the first virtual machine is assigned; creating, at the switch, a second frame, and embedding into the second frame: transmitting the second frame from the switch to the trunked port interface of the gateway device; translating, using translation logic of the gateway device, the combination of the internal source IP address and the first VLAN tag of the second frame into an external source IP address that uniquely identifies the virtual machine to an external server; creating, at the gateway device, a third frame, and embedding into the third frame: and transmitting the third frame to the server intended to receive the data sent from the first virtual machine, wherein the server is an external server located on a computer network that is external to the internal computer network of the virtual machines.