Patent ID: 8681661

Claim:
A method of learning a physical address of one or more host device in a local network, comprising: configuring a plurality of local network switches, each of which are linked directly to one or more host devices, to only learn a physical address of a first host device to which it is directly linked and to only learn a physical address of a second host device to which it is not directly linked provided the physical address of the second host device is included in a unicast frame and the physical address of the first host device is known, wherein the configuring includes configuring a first local network switch of the plurality of local network switches by: designating at least one port on the first local network switch that is directly linked to the first host device to be a host facing port and to learn the physical address of the first host device included on any type of frame received; and designating at least one port on the first local network switch that is not directly linked to the second host device to be a switch facing port and to learn the physical address of the second host device included only in unicast frames received; the first host device broadcasting an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) request; each one of the plurality of the local network switches receiving the ARP request, but only the first local network switch learning the physical address of the first host device; a second host device receiving the ARP request and transmitting an ARP response to the first host device that includes the physical address of the second host device and the physical address of the first host device; and the first local network switch receiving the ARP response and learning the physical address of the second host device included in the ARP response provided that the physical address to the first host device is known.