Patent ID: 8166187

Claim:
A method comprising: assigning, by a distributed gateway protocol circuit in a first network switching device, a shared Media Access Control (MAC) address to a shared Internet Protocol (IP) address, the shared MAC address and the shared IP address being configured to enable connected network devices to reach a distributed IP gateway in a network, the distributed IP gateway comprising at least two network switching devices operating concurrently with each other, the concurrent operation based on enabling a combined use of first hop redundancy protocols (FHRP) and multiple data link channels in the at least two network switching devices; claiming, with the distributed gateway protocol circuit in the first network switching device, active control over the distributed IP gateway; and sending, by a layer 2 forwarding circuit in the first network switching device, an instruction via a peer data link to a peer layer 2 forwarding circuit in a second network switching device in response to the distributed gateway protocol circuit in the first network switching device claiming active control of the distributed IP gateway and based on determining the shared MAC address is assigned to a layer 2 virtual large area network (VLAN) group that is configured for multichannel link layer communications, the instruction enabling the second network switching device to operate concurrently with the first network switching device as part of the distributed IP gateway based on concurrent use of the shared MAC address and the shared IP address by the first network switching device and the second network switching device.