Patent ID: 8135007

Claim:
A method at a switching device in a network, the method comprising: receiving a data packet to be directed to one or more destinations in the network; determining whether a condition of the network indicates that the received data packet is associated with a redirect port of the switching device, wherein the redirect port is associated with a network service configured to return a redirected data packet to the switching device based on an analysis of the redirected data packet; determining whether the received data packet is to be flooded from multiple ports of the switching device, wherein the received data packet is to be flooded from the multiple ports of the switching device if it is determined that the received data packet includes a broadcast destination address, or if it is determined that the received data packet includes a destination address which fails to correspond to any entry in a forwarding database; where it is determined that the received data packet is to be flooded, flooding the received data packet from the multiple ports of the switching device, wherein the redirect port is isolated from the flooding of the received data packet; and where it is determined that the condition of the network indicates that the received data packet is associated with the redirect port and where it is determined that the received data packet is not to be flooded from the switching device, redirecting the received data packet to the redirect port.