Patent 7577146 was granted and assigned to Redback Networks on August, 2009 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A network element modifying the DHCP lease timer is described. According to one embodiment, an exemplary method includes maintaining, at a network element, DHCP lease time for one or more clients and in response to a DHCP renewal request from a client, on behalf of a DHCP server, providing DHCP renewal services to the client based on lease time information associated with the client without invoking the DHCP server.