odd source address packets to host 106 the auxiliary lookup mechanism may modify the proposed set of egress ports that have already been selected by the multicast forwarding logic the auxiliary lookup mechanism will be discussed in further detail below other example embodiments of nodes a and b 102 may apply the auxiliary lookup mechanism to filter the multicast transmission to other nodes 102 and may employ filtering mechanisms other than even and odd source addresses persons of ordinary skill in the art are aware that the auxiliary lookup mechanism may also be applied to any other types of data transmission such as unicast or broadcast transmissions fig2 is a flowchart of an embodiment of a method 200 that performs an auxiliary lookup mechanism against egress logical ports method 200 may start at block 202 where u201c operand u201d values are associated with logical ports of a node u201c operand u201d values may be a sequence of bits e g u201c 11001111 u201d for each ingress and egress logical port within a node the u201c operand u201d values may be unique values for each logical port and may be obtained from a port address or assigned by an administrator for example one logical port may be assigned a bit value of u201c 10000 u201d while another logical port may be assigned a bit value of u201c 10001 u201d the u201c operand u201d values from.