Suppressing ARP broadcasting in a hypervisor

A computer system, wherein system software for the computer system is programmed to execute a method for communicating in a network, the method comprising:

• maintaining a table mapping internet protocol (IP) addresses to port identifiers (port IDs) of ports of a Layer 2 (L2) switch;
• receiving a packet at the L2 switch, the packet comprising an IP address of a destination endpoint, the packet not including a media access control (MAC) address of the destination endpoint;
• determining a type of the received packet;
• based on the type of the received packet being a first type, checking whether the destination IP address in the received packet matches an entry in the table;
• if the destination IP address in the received packet matches an entry in the table:
• determining a port ID associated with the matching entry;
• and
• forwarding the received packet over a port of the L2 switch associated with the determined port ID and not other ports of the L2 switch;
• and
• if the destination IP address in the received packet does not match an entry in the table, duplicating and broadcasting the received packet to all ports of the L2 switch.

A computer system for communicating in a network, comprising:

• a memory;
• and
• a processor configured to:
• maintain a table mapping internet protocol (IP) addresses to port identifiers (port IDs) of ports of a Layer 2 (L2) switch;
• receive a packet at the L2 switch, the packet comprising an IP address of a destination endpoint, the packet not including a media access control (MAC) address of the destination endpoint;
• determine a type of the received packet;
• based on the type of the received packet being a first type, check whether the destination IP address in the received packet matches an entry in the table;
• if the destination IP address in the received packet matches an entry in the table:
• determine a port ID associated with the matching entry;
• and
• forward the received packet over a port of the L2 switch associated with the determined port ID and not other ports of the L2 switch;
• and
• if the destination IP address in the received packet does not match an entry in the table, duplicate and broadcast the received packet to all ports of the L2 switch.