Patent ID: 8379642

Claim:
A method of forwarding a multicast data frame, the method comprising: receiving a multicast data frame at a distributed virtual bridge, the distributed virtual bridge comprising: a plurality of bridge elements coupled to a plurality of computing nodes, wherein the plurality of bridge elements are configured to forward a copy of a multicast data frame to the plurality of computing nodes using group member information associated with addresses of the plurality of computing nodes; and a controlling bridge coupled to the plurality of bridge elements, the controlling bridge configured to communicate the group member information to the plurality of bridge elements; and forwarding a plurality of copies of the multicast data frame according to the group member information, including: forwarding a first copy of the plurality of copies of the multicast data frame to a first computing node of the plurality of computing nodes, wherein the first computing node is directly coupled to a port of a first bridge element of the plurality of bridge elements, forwarding a second copy of the plurality of copies of the multicast data frame from the first bridge element to a second bridge element, wherein the first bridge elements is located on a first super node and the second bridge element is located on a second super node, and forwarding a third copy of the plurality of copies of the multicast data frame from the second bridge element to a third bridge element located on the second super node.