Patent ID: 7477894

Claim:
A method for handling a roam request at a first switch, the roam request sent by a second switch and containing information about the client that is roaming to the second switch, the method comprising: receiving the roam request at the first switch; determining, in response to said receiving, if the first switch has stored information regarding the client; if the first switch has stored information regarding the client, determining if the first switch is a home agent for the client; if the first switch has stored information regarding the client and is determined not to be the home agent, removing the stored information regarding the client from the first switch; tunneling traffic for the client to the second switch if the first switch is determined to be a home agent for the client; sending a roam reply to the second switch; discovering if the first switch is the same as the second switch by determining if the roam request received by the first switch was also sent by the first switch; performing said determining, removing, and tunneling only if the first switch is not the same as the second switch; setting the first switch as the foreign agent if the first switch is the same as the second switch; and updating a virtual network tag corresponding to the client in a data structure controlled by the first switch if the first switch is the same as the second switch.