Patent ID: 7403523

Claim:
A method for distributing packets of a ring-topology-based link level communications protocol over a star topology using a star-topology-based link level communications protocol, the method comprising: (a) receiving a packet of a ring-topology-based link level communications protocol; (b) determining whether the packet is intended to be forwarded to each of a plurality of destinations and returned to a sender; (c) in response to determining that the packet is to be forwarded to the destinations and returned to the sender, distributing the packet to each destination in the star topology and returning the packet to the sender using a star-topology-based link level communications protocol; and (d) in response to determining that the packet is not to be forwarded to the destinations and returned to the sender, converting a ring-topology-based link level communications protocol destination address in the packet to a star-topology-based link level communications protocol destination address, encapsulating the ring-topology-based protocol packet in a star-topology-based protocol packet having the star-topology-based destination address and forwarding the star-topology-based packet to its intended destination over the star topology.