Patent ID: 8116320

Claim:
A program product comprising non-transitory program instructions, embodied on a storage medium, that are operable to cause a processor in a connector device to: switch input data packets for ingress to at least one internal-device port of an internal device from all external ports using virtual local area network identifiers and port virtual local area network tags, the port virtual local area network tags being added to the ingressing data packet upon input to the connector device, wherein the ingressing input data packets are switched through the connector device independent of a source address and a destination address of the input data packet; and the program instructions being further operable to cause an internal processor in the internal device to: switch output data packets for egress from the internal-device ports of the internal device using the virtual local area network identifiers and the port virtual local area network tags, the port virtual local area network tags being added to the egressing data packet at the internal device prior to being sent to the connector device, wherein the egressing output data packets are switched independent of a source address and a destination address of the egressing output data packet, and wherein there are more external ports than internal-device ports, and wherein applications in the internal device have visibility to all external ports.