Patent ID: 8095667

Claim:
A method for waking up a computer, the method comprising: receiving a data unit via a first network link at least in part by receiving the data unit via a first port of a network switching device, wherein the first port is coupled to the first network link; determining whether the received data unit includes data indicative of a wake-up event for the computer at least in part by determining whether the received data unit includes a pre-defined data sequence including a plurality of repetitions of the Media Access Control (MAC) address of the computer, as defined by the Wake-On-LAN standard, wherein determining whether the received data unit includes data indicative of the wake-up event for the computer is performed by the network switching device; and changing a state of a second network link to wake up the computer if the data unit includes data indicative of the wake-up event for the computer, wherein changing the state of the second network link to wake up the computer comprises the network switching device changing the state of the second network link via a second port of the network switching device, wherein the second port is coupled to the second network link.