Patent ID: 7711826

Claim:
A method for facilitating communication between nodes of at least one computer network, the computer network including a first client system, a first DHCP server system, and a first DHCP relay agent, the first DHCP relay agent being configured or designed to facilitate communications between the first client system and the first DHCP server system, the method comprising: detecting a first DHCP-related request message sent from the first client system to the first DHCP server system; determining that the first DHCP server system is unavailable; in response to determining that the first DHCP server system is unavailable: retrieving information relating to a first DHCP lease associated with the first client system, the first DHCP lease including DHCP lease information specifying a first assigned network address and a first lease time value; calculating, using at least a portion of the retrieved DHCP lease information, an updated lease time value to be associated with the first DHCP lease; and comparing the updated lease time value against a predetermined threshold value T; and generating and sending a first DHCP response message in response to the first DHCP-related request message based upon a result of comparing the updated lease time value against the predetermined threshold value T, wherein the first DHCP response message includes updated DHCP lease information specifying the first assigned network address and the updated lease time value, wherein sending the first DHCP response message is performed without waiting until the first DHCP server system is available.