Patent ID: 7808983

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a lower-layer network device comprising a plurality of ports an upstream packet processing section, wherein each of said ports is coupled to said upstream packet processing section, said upstream packet processing section comprises an uplink transmit unit, said lower-layer network device is configured to communicate with an upper-layer network device comprising a lower-layer protocol processing unit configured to perform lower-layer protocol processing on behalf of said lower-layer network device, wherein said lower-layer protocol processing comprises local processing, said local processing is local to said lower-layer network device, and said local processing is local to said lower-layer network device by virtue of said local processing comprising determining whether a packet received at a first port of said ports should be forwarded to a second port of said ports, wherein said determining is performed using a destination of said packet, and if said packet should be forwarded to the second port of said ports, forwarding the packet to the second port of said ports in response to said determining, said uplink transmit unit is configured to communicate with said upper-layer network device by virtue of being configured to transfer a packet received by said lower-layer network device to said upper-layer network device, and said upstream packet processing section is configured to perform said transferring irrespective of a destination of said packet.