Patent ID: 8014410
Filing Date: 2011-09-06
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for forwarding Ethernet packets by an Ethernet bridge in an Ethernet Layer 2 VPN network, comprising: connecting at least two customer edge devices (CE devices) having respective MAC addresses, wherein notifying, by the L2VPN module of the ingress LER, the first Ethernet bridge about the primary internal port associated to the receiving MAC-address and to the VLAN identification; notifying, by the L2VPN module of the ingress LER, the first Ethernet bridge about the backup internal port ( adding, by the first Ethernet bridge, to the internal filtering database the backup internal port to be used in the event of failure of the primary MPLS port to create a combined filtering database; notifying, by the L2VPN module of the ingress LER, the first Ethernet bridge about MPLS ports status; transmitting, by the at least one transmitting CE device, transmitting Ethernet packets of a given VLAN identification to the receiving MAC-address of the at least one receiving CE device; checking, by the first Ethernet bridge, before forwarding the transmitted Ethernet packets, when, in the combined filtering database, the receiving MAC-address of the given VLAN is associated to a backup ingress internal port, if the corresponding primary MPLS port directly associated to the primary ingress internal port is failed; and if the corresponding primary MPLS port is failed, forwarding Ethernet packets to the backup egress port of the receiving MAC-address having the VLAN identification.