Patent ID: 8634330

Claim:
A networked computer system comprising a plurality of processing clusters including a plurality of physical or virtual processing modes, the computer system comprising at least one processor for executing program instructions and at least one memory coupled to the processor for executing the program instructions, wherein the program instructions are program instructions for providing communications between the clusters, the program instructions comprising program instructions for: receiving user input designating at least one target node in a first one of the processing clusters and a link layer address to use for communication between the first and second processing cluster; identifying the at least one target node to a given one of the processing nodes in a second one of the processing clusters; transmitting a message from the given processing node to the target node by identifying the target node using the target node name, wherein the message contains the link layer address; responsive to the transmitting, receiving the message at the target node; responsive to the receiving, storing the link layer address in a second shared storage accessible by the processing nodes in the first cluster; notifying second other ones of the processing nodes in the second cluster of the configuration change, whereby the at least one first gateway node is notified that the link layer address is available to enable communications with the second cluster; and subsequently communicating between at least one first gateway node in the first cluster and at least one second gateway node in the second cluster using the link layer address, whereby the at least one first gateway node and the at least one second gateway node communicate independent of whether the first and second processing clusters are on the same network.