Patent ID: 8891403

Claim:
A method for communication within a networked computer system including multiple processing clusters, the clusters comprising a plurality of physical or virtual processing modes, the method comprising: designating at least one target node in a first one of the processing clusters; identifying the at least one target node to a given one of the processing nodes in a second one of the processing clusters; providing a link layer address to use for communication between the first and second processing cluster; 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.