Patent ID: 7792124

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, at a port of a distribution layer router that is coupled to an access layer network device, a data packet from the access layer network device, the data packet including a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) identifier that is associated with a port on the access layer network device at which the data packet was received from a host, the data packet further including a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the host; performing, at the distribution layer router, a route lookup procedure based on the received data packet to determine a destination of the data packet; updating an ARP table, stored at the distribution layer router, with the MAC address of the host, the VLAN identifier of the data packet and the port of the distribution layer router on which the data packet was received from the access layer network device; removing the VLAN identifier from the data packet; and transmitting the data packet with the VLAN identifier removed from the distribution layer router to a destination network device.