NETWORK AND METHOD FOR IMPLEMENTING A WORKGROUP

摘要

Each port in a switch or bridge is provided with an additional identifier whereby ports may be grouped together to create a separate virtual network. Each source port adds additional addressing bits to a packet, which addressing bits are indicative of the work group of the source port. This is preferably done as the packets enter a switch or bridge. Each destination port has logic which checks its own additional addressing bits against the additional addressing bits in the packet and if there is disparity at that stage it ignores the packet. The efficiency of data handling is thus greatly improved.