Patent ID: 7860092

Claim:
A system for simultaneously providing layer-2 multicast switching and layer-3 multicast routing, wherein a VLAN (virtual local area network)-based layer-2 switch performs a virtual interface-based layer-3 routing function, the system comprising: a physical interface for receiving an Ethernet frame; a VLAN defined on the physical interface, for performing a layer-2 multicast switching function on the received Ethernet frame through the same LAN according to a destination MAC address of the received Ethernet frame; a virtual interface for interfacing between the VLAN and a layer-3 router; and a virtual router for mapping a VLAN ID (identifier) of the VLAN to the virtual interface to perform a virtual interface-based layer-3 multicast routing function at the VLAN-based layer-2 switch on the received Ethernet frame according to a destination IP address of the received Ethernet frame, wherein the VLAN ID of the received Ethernet frame is maintained for the layer-2 multicast switching function and the VLAN ID of the received Ethernet frame is changed into a VLAN ID mapped to the virtual interface for the layer-3 multicast routing function.