SYSTEM AND METHODS FOR MANAGING NETWORK HARDWARE ADDRESS REQUESTS WITH A CONTROLLER

摘要

A controller may fulfill hardware address requests that are sent by source end hosts in a network to discover hardware addresses of destination end hosts. The controller may use network topology information to determine how to process the hardware address requests. The controller may retrieve a requested hardware address from a database of end hosts. If the controller is able to retrieve the hardware address of a destination end host from the database of end hosts, the controller may provide the source end host with a reply packet that contains the requested hardware address. If the controller is unable to retrieve the requested hardware address, the controller may form request packets to discover the address of the second end host and/or to discover a packet forwarding path between the source end host and the destination end host.