Patent ID: 7969994

Claim:
A networking apparatus capable of switching packets and configured to be a member of a group of switches, a plurality of virtual local area network (VLANs) configured within the group of switches, the apparatus comprising: a plurality of ports, each port mapped to a different VLAN of the plurality of VLANs, a single network device outside the group of switches being connected to one or more selected ports of the plurality of ports; memory; and a processor coupled to the memory and to the plurality of ports, wherein the processor executes programming stored in the memory to: determine a number of the selected ports to which the single network device is connected; where the number of the selected ports is not less than a number of the VLANs configured within the group of switches, communicating data packets between a selected VLAN of the plurality of VLANs and the single network device over one of the selected ports that corresponds to the selected VLAN; where the number of the selected ports is less than the number of the VLANs configured within the group of switches, such that the VLANs comprise one or more connected VLANs that are connected to the selected ports and one or more unconnected VLANs that are not connected to the selected ports, collapsing each unconnected VLAN onto one of the connected VLANs; communicating data packets between a selected unconnected VLAN of the unconnected VLANs and the single network device over one of the selected ports that corresponds to the connected VLAN onto which the selected unconnected VLAN has been collapsed.