Some implementations provide a method for managing switches in a data center that includes: (1) establishing a connection from one switch to another switch in the data center, the data center providing a plurality of virtual local area networks (VLANs), each VLAN including at least one Virtual Machine and capable of spanning across more than one of the plurality of switches; (2) provisioning device prefixes for IPv6 addresses, a given device prefix corresponding to a particular VLAN on a particular switch in the data center, the given device prefix included in a host address of a particular virtual machine, the particular virtual machine hosted on a server computer, the sever computer connected to the particular switch without additional intervening switches; (3) configuring a hardware memory to include prefix information and address information; and (4) transferring packets by using the prefix information and the address information.