Patent ID: 8279867

Claim:
A method for limiting the flooding of unicast traffic on one or more logical network segment (LNS) operatively coupled with a switching device said switching device comprising one or more ports each said port capable of operatively coupling one or more of said LNSs and said switching device, said switching device capable of bridging and filtering data frames between said operatively coupled LNSs, said method comprising: (i) identifying and selecting one or more limited flooding logical network segment (LFLNS) selected from the group consisting of said LNSs operatively coupled to said switching device wherein (a) a selected LFLNS has a predetermined maximum number of device addresses expected to be concurrently operatively associated with said LFLNS and (b) said method is to be utilized on said LFLNS; (ii) for one or more first LFLNS selected from the group consisting of said LFLNSs on said switching device, identifying as a loaded LFLNS each said first LFLNS wherein the number of said device addresses currently operatively associated with said first LFLNS in a forwarding table of said switching device is equal to or greater then said predetermined maximum number of said device addresses expected to be concurrently operatively associated with said first LFLNS, said operative association of a first device address and said first LFLNS in said forwarding table indicating a reasonable expectation by said switching device that the device associated with said first device address is operatively coupled with said first LFLNS; (iii) executing a forwarding decision operation on said switching device for a unicast frame to be forwarded by said switching device, said forwarding decision operation comprising (a) looking up the destination LNS said device address operatively associated with said unicast frame in said forwarding table of said switching device and (b) excluding each second LFLNS from selection as an LNS for the forwarding of said frame if (1) said destination device address was not operatively associated with said second LFLNS in said forwarding table and (2) said second LFLNS is currently identified as a loaded LFLNS.