Patent ID: 8045570

Claim:
A method of operating a Provider Link State Bridging (PLSB) network to provide an instance of a virtual private Ethernet switching service between a private LAN attached to a first node of the PLSB network and at least one roaming device attached to a respective second node of the PLSB network, the PLSB network comprising a control plane and a data plane, data packets in the PLSB network carrying I-SID identifiers to differentiate traffic of different network users, the method comprising: providing a virtual bridging function at the first node; allocating a first I-SID identifier to traffic of the virtual private Ethernet switching service instance in the PLSB network; establishing a PLSB path labeled by the first I-SID between the virtual bridging function and each respective second node by: detecting when a roaming device attaches to the second node of the PLSB network; authenticating the roaming device for access to the virtual private Ethernet switching service; sending the first I-SID to the second node upon a successful authentication; adding the first I-SID to a list of I-SIDs to be advertised into the PLSB network by the second node; advertising the first I-SID identifier into the PLSB network by the virtual bridging function and the second node, the advertising being via the control plane of the PLSB network, the PLSB path being established by the PLSB control plane in response to the advertising; binding the roaming device to a PLSB UNI interface at the second node using the first I-SID; bridging traffic at the virtual bridging function between the private LAN and the PLSB path to each second node.