Patent ID: 8630288

Claim:
A switch, comprising: a processor coupled to a memory; one or more forwarding tables residing within the memory; one or more ports, wherein: the one or more ports are associated with a plurality of virtual local area networks; the one or more ports are associated with a plurality of bridge domains; each of the bridge domains is associated with one of the forwarding tables, and each of the forwarding tables is associated with one of the bridge domains; and wherein the processor is configured to: assign a first tag to a received packet, the first tag comprising an identification of an active bridge domain, wherein: the active bridge domain comprises one of the plurality of bridge domains; and the active bridge domain is associated with the ingress port of the received packet; assign a second tag to the received packet, the second tag comprising an identification of one of the plurality of virtual local area networks; look up the destination address of the received packet in one of the forwarding tables; based on a determination that in the destination address is not found in the forwarding table, selectively flood the one or more ports of the active bridge domain with a copy of the received packet, comprising: determining the virtual local area network identified by the second tag of the received packet; for each of the one or more ports of the of the active bridge domain: based on a determination that the port is associated with the virtual local area network, forwarding the packet to the port; and based on a determination that the port is not associated with the virtual local area network, not forwarding the packet to the port.