Patent ID: 7903647

Claim:
A method comprising: (a) at a first network device, receiving a request from a particular node to be assigned an IP address for a media access control (MAC) address of such particular node and receiving, in response to such request, a response from a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server, wherein the response has an internet protocol (IP) address that is assigned to the MAC address of the particular node; (b) at the first network device, storing a binding entry in a DHCP Snooping Database, wherein the stored binding entry associates the IP address and the MAC address for the particular node, wherein each entry of the DHCP Snooping Database corresponds to a valid IP address that is assigned to a particular MAC address and wherein the first network device is configured to intercept data and determine whether such intercepted data contains a valid IP address that is assigned to a particular MAC address based on the DHCP Snooping Database of the first network device; and (c) sending at least a portion of the binding entry, including the associated IP and MAC address for the particular node, from the DHCP Snooping Database of the first network device to a second network device for the second network device to store such binding entry in a corresponding DHCP Snooping Database of the second network device, wherein the first and second network device belong to a same redundancy network device group and the second network device is configured to intercept data and determine whether the intercepted data contains a valid IP address that is assigned to a particular MAC address based on the corresponding DHCP Snooping Database of the second network device.