Patent ID: 6789104
Filing Date: 2004-09-07
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A communications system which constructs emulated LAN environments on a connection-oriented network, comprising:(a) a plurality of LAN stations each having an identifier; (b) a LAN emulation server employed in each emulated LAN environment to provide address resolution services thereon, each LAN emulation server having a network address on the connection-oriented network; (c) a broadcast server employed in each emulated LAN environment to support broadcast traffic thereon; (d) a LAN emulation configuration server, comprising address management means for managing associations between the identifiers of the LAN stations and the network addresses of the LAN emulation servers, and when a specific identifier is given, determining which network address is relevant to the given identifier; and (e) a LAN emulation client coupled to at least one of said LAN stations, comprising: address requesting means for requesting said LAN emulation configuration server to provide the network address of the LAN emulation servers, and requesting said LAN emulation servers to provide the network address of the broadcast servers associated therewith, parameter management means for storing operating parameters for the emulated LAN environments, the operating parameters including the identifiers of the LAN stations, the network addresses obtained in response to the request from said address management means, and information about connections, and data communication means for transferring data according to the parameters stored in said parameter management means.