Patent ID: 7627690

Claim:
A data generating device comprising: a reading unit to read out forward management information relating to a forwarding process of multicast data to be containing a multicast address as a destination address of a first layer from data of a second layer higher than the first layer, wherein each of the first layer and the second layer is one of layers defined on an OSI model; a storage unit to store the forward management information read by the reading unit; a data generating unit to identify one or more clients, each of which desires to receive multicast data and corresponds to a forward destination of the multicast data, based on the forward management information stored in the storage unit, to generate a same number of copies of the multicast data as a number of identified clients˜ and to convert the destination address of the first layer of each copy of the multicast data being the multicast address into a first layer address of a corresponding one of the identified clients so that a switching device accommodating the identified one or more clients receives each copy of the multicast data converted the destination address of the first layer to forward each copy of the multicast data to the identified one or more clients based on data of the first layer of each copy of the multicast data; and a forwarding unit to forward each copy of the multicast data converted the destination address of the first layer and generated by the data generating unit to the switching device.