Patent ID: 8134922

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: one or more physical interfaces configured to communicate with a plurality of bridges; and memory and one or more processing elements configured to configure each of the plurality of bridges connected to a device over a plurality of communications links with no intervening bridges; wherein said configuring of the plurality of bridges results in only a particular bridge of the plurality of bridges being configured to forward broadcast packets to the device, while allowing unicast packet traffic to be sent between each of the plurality of bridges to the device over each of the plurality of communications links; wherein each of the plurality of bridges is communicatively coupled to the device over at least one communications link of the plurality of communications links different than one of the plurality communications links used by another of the plurality of bridges; wherein each of the plurality of bridges is separate from both the apparatus and the device; and wherein the device does not coordinate with any of the plurality of bridges to gain an understanding of a topology of a network including the plurality of bridges and the device.