Patent ID: 8284656

Claim:
A system of redundant pair automatic protection switching at the edge of a Virtual Private LAN System (VPLS) network comprising a redundant pair of provider edge nodes comprising: a first provider edge node that is a working node of the redundant pair before a switchover and a protection node of the redundant pair after the switchover, and a second provider edge node that is the protection node of the redundant pair before the switchover and the working node of the redundant pair after the switchover; and a third provider edge node possessing a media access control (MAC) address entry for the first provider edge node, previously learned by the third provider edge node, wherein the first provider edge node, when functioning as the working node, communicates with the third provider edge node, and, after the switchover in the redundant pair, sends an explicit request to the third provider edge node to flush said MAC address entry for the first provider edge node.