Patent ID: 7876673

Claim:
A method for communication, comprising: in a communication network that includes multiple ring nodes arranged in at least first and second ring networks, which are connected by two or more of the ring nodes serving as interconnect nodes, accepting at the two or more interconnect nodes respective copies of a data packet, which is sent from a source user node connected to the first ring network; extracting an attribute from the respective copies of the data packet at each of the interconnect nodes, and applying a predefined mapping function to the extracted attribute so as to select a single interconnect node for forwarding the data packet to the second ring network; sending, by each interconnect node, a synchronization message indicating the status thereof; receiving, by each interconnect node, the synchronization messages of the other interconnect nodes; responsively to the receiving the synchronization messages, assigning to each interconnect node a respective forwarding status selected from a group consisting of: “forward mine”; “forward none”; and “forward all”; and for an iterated interconnect node of the interconnect nodes: if the iterated interconnect node has a “forward mine” forwarding status, then forwarding a single copy of the data packet to the second ring network only if the iterated interconnect node is the selected interconnect node, while refraining from forwarding a copy of the data packet if the iterated interconnect node is not the selected interconnect node; if the iterated interconnect node has a “forward none” forwarding status, then refraining from forwarding a copy of the data packet regardless of the predefined mapping function and the selected interconnect node; and if the iterated interconnect node has a “forward all” forwarding status, then forwarding a singled copy of the data packet to the second ring network regardless of the predefined mapping function and the selected interconnect node.