Patent ID: 8483181

Claim:
A method for responding to micro-mobility events performed by a network element, wherein the network element provides mobile nodes with access to a network, the network element comprising a control plane and a forwarding plane, and the method comprising the steps of: receiving a mobility message at a new ingress engine in the forwarding plane from a mobile node, the new ingress engine associated with a new access port, wherein the mobility message indicates the mobile node has switched from accessing the network through an old base station system (BSS) to accessing the network through a new BSS; creating, at the forwarding plane in response to receipt of the mobility message, a forwarding rule to cause packets destined for the mobile node to be forwarded from an old egress engine associated with an old access port to a new egress engine associated with the new access port; adding the forwarding rule to the old egress engine; receiving a packet destined for the mobile node at the old egress engine; and forwarding the packet from the old egress engine to the new egress engine using the forwarding rule.