Patent ID: 8873551

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving, from a Classical Ethernet (CE) switch, at a first peer link switch, a network packet having a multi-destination address as a destination address; forwarding the network packet over one or more links connecting the first peer link switch to one or more nodes of a Layer 2 multipath (L2MP) network; and forwarding the network packet over a peer link connecting the first peer link switch to a second peer link switch, wherein the peer link provides a backplane link between the first peer link switch and second peer link switch, wherein the first peer link switch and the second peer link switch are each connected to the CE switch over a virtual port channel, wherein the second peer link switch is configured to forward the network packet over one or more links connecting the second peer link switch to one or more nodes of the L2MP network, wherein each of the one or more nodes of the L2MP network to which the network packet is forwarded is configured to perform an incoming interface check on the forwarded network packet, wherein the first peer link switch and the second peer link switch are configured as an emulated switch in the L2MP network, wherein one of the first peer link switch and the second peer link of the emulated switch is designated to forward network packets originating from the L2MP network and having a multi-destination address to the CE switch.