Patent ID: 8588229

Claim:
A system comprising: a plurality of ports configured to communicate with a plurality of devices in a plurality of virtual local area networks, wherein each of the virtual local area networks has a database of MAC addresses of one or more of the plurality of devices belonging to the respective one of the virtual local area networks, wherein the database of each of the virtual local area networks has a database number, and wherein each of the plurality of ports (i) has a port identifier, (ii) is configured to communicate with one of the devices in one of the virtual local area networks, and (iii) includes a register configured to store the database number of one of the databases corresponding to the one of the virtual local area networks; a lookup engine configured to hash a destination MAC address of a frame in response to the frame being received at one of the plurality of ports to generate a hashed MAC address, and combine the hashed MAC address and the database number stored in the register of the one of the plurality of ports to generate a bucket address; and a controller configured to transmit the frame to one or more of the plurality of ports based on the bucket address.