Patent ID: 7631100

Claim:
A method for conducting physical address discovery, facilitating point-to-point communications between hosts of a cluster operating in a cluster mode wherein acceptable messages are addressed to a shared cluster address, the method comprising: receiving by a target host, an address discovery request initiated by a source host seeking a physical address of the target host, wherein the source host and the target host are both hosts within the same cluster, wherein the target host is distinct from the source host and the target host comprises a network communication protocol-specific layer including an address discovery request handler that operates in the cluster mode; and generating by the target host, an address discovery response acceptable by the source host operating in the cluster mode, wherein the address discovery response comprises a response source physical address field specifying a non-cluster mode physical address of the target host, wherein the generating comprises: determining by the target host whether the address discovery request was issued by a source host operating in the cluster mode, wherein the determining comprises: detecting that the address discovery request includes a request source physical address field specifying the shared cluster address assigned to the cluster, and a request source network communication protocol-specific address field identifying the source host as a host within the cluster; modifying the request source physical address field within the address discovery request, in accordance with the determining step, by replacing the shared cluster address with a non-cluster mode physical address of the source host; passing the address discovery request to the address discovery request handler; first creating an initial address discovery response, by the address discovery request handler, based upon the modified address discovery request, the address discovery response including: the shared cluster address within the response source physical address field; and the non-cluster mode physical address of the source host within a response target physical address field; and second creating a revised address discovery response by: first replacing the shared cluster address with the non-cluster mode physical address of the source host within the response source physical address field; and second replacing the non-cluster mode physical address of the source host with the shared cluster address within the response target physical address field.