Patent ID: 7848225

Claim:
A method for service protection switching in a connectionless network, applicable among a plurality of protection switching points that belong to a same service instance, wherein the plurality of protection switching points are located in a network with protection switching support including flow domains comprising at least working and protection flow domains, and each protection switching point is coupled to at least two remote protection switching points, and a path exists between the protection switching point and each of its remote protection switching points in the flow domains, and wherein the method comprises: establishing in the flow domains a path forwarding table for all of the protection switching points; broadcasting, by each protection switching point a failure detection message periodically to at least two remote protection switching points to which each protection switching point is coupled; determining, by each protection switching point, that a failure has occurred on a path in the flow domains if the protection switching point has not received the failure detection message, broadcasted by the remote protection switching point, from the path in the flow domains within a predetermined detection time; sending a failure notification message, via the path in the other flow domain, to the remote protection switching point which is located on the failure-occurred path when each protection switching point detects a failure occurred on a path in one of the flow domains; and, delivering a service in the service instance, whose destination address is the source address of the failure notification message, via the path in the other flow domain according to the path forwarding table after receiving the failure notification message from the remote protection switching point.