Patent ID: 8064455

Claim:
A method performed by a computing system, comprising: a) associating an outbound packet with a first network interface of said computing system, said computing system positioned as an end point, said associating of said outbound packet with said first network interface comprising: associating a socket with said first network interface; submitting said outbound packet to said socket; b) constructing a search key from an identifier of said first network interface and said outbound packet's destination address; c) submitting said search key to a routing function, said routing function identifying said outbound packet's next hop address, said next hop address identifying a node on an a local area network to which said computing system is coupled, said next hop address not being an IP address and being respectively formatted according to said local area network's destination addressing format; and, d) transmitting said outbound packet to said node identified by said next hop address from said first network interface.