Patent ID: 9276767
Filing Date: 2016-03-01
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A first ring node arranged to protect against loops in an Ethernet ring by performing Ethernet Ring Protection (ERP) according to an Ethernet Ring Protection (ERP) protocol standard, the first ring node being located directly adjacent to at least one second ring node in the Ethernet ring which is not configured to perform ERP according to the same ERP protocol standard, wherein the first ring node comprising: at least one receiving ring port; and at least one transmitting ring port, wherein the first ring node is configured to, upon detection of a link failure or recovery event in the Ethernet ring resulting in a flush operation of a filtering database (FDB) in the first ring node in accordance with the ERP protocol standard, send a message on the at least one transmitting ring port to the at least one second ring node which is operable to cause said at least one second ring node to perform a flush operation of its filtering database (FDB) wherein the first ring node is configured to be communicatively connected with a third ring node in the Ethernet ring by tunneling a VLAN used by the ERP protocol standard through the at least one second ring node, wherein said third ring node in the Ethernet ring is configured to perform ERP according to the same ERP protocol standard as the first ring node, wherein the ERP protocol standard for the first ring node is the ITU-T G.8032 ERP switching protocol, and another ERP protocol standard for the at least one second ring node is the Spanning Tree Protocol (STP) or the Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol (RSTP), wherein the message comprises a Spanning Tree Protocol Topology Change Notification (STP TCN) or a Rapid Spanning Tree Protocol Topology Change Notification (RSTP TCN), and is sent by the first ring node to the at least one second ring node using the Internal Network-Network-Interface (I-NNI).