Patent attributes
A connection management apparatus for network devices is disclosed. The connection management apparatus makes it possible to easily change connection paths of network devices for individual users, thereby decreasing the number of steps required to add and change a connection path. The connection management apparatus includes a lookup table and a tag replacement and transmission part. The lookup table includes tags and destination addresses indicating a user and a next destination of a received packet by using a tag attached to the received packet as a search key. The tag replacement and transmission part replaces a tag of the received packet with a tag detected from the lookup table and transmits the resulting packet to a destination address detected from the lookup table.
