Patent ID: 8416702

Claim:
A network switch comprising a plurality of input ports and a plurality of output ports each associated with the respective input ports, wherein a multicast packet is output from an output port, the network switch comprising: a multicast control information retaining section that specifies, from among said output ports, an output port from which the multicast packet is output, wherein said multicast control information retaining section specifies, from among said output ports, an output port from which the multicast packet is output, based on the input port from which the path setting command is input; a multicast controller that performs transfer path setting for setting a transfer path of the multicast packet to the output port that is specified by said multicast control information retaining section; an adder section that counts the number of completed path setting processes which is the number of processes for which said multicast controller has completed the transfer path setting; a comparator section that determines whether or not the number of completed processes counted by said adder section is identical with the number of processes for executing the multicast communication, and that when it is determined that the numbers are identical with each other, recognizes that the transfer path setting of the multicast communication has been completed; and a completion notification generation section that generates a path setting completion notification indicating that the transfer path setting is completed when the comparator section recognizes that the transfer path setting of the multicast communication has been completed, and that transfers the generated path setting completion notification to a transmission source of the path setting command that is input to the input port.