Patent ID: 8467286

Claim:
A network node operable in an Ethernet ring network, the network node comprising: a LAG (link aggregation) component comprising a first port operable for receiving communications from non-ring entities, and further comprising a second port and a third port operable for forwarding the received communications as untagged frames, wherein the forwarding includes load balancing the untagged frames between the second port and the third port; and a ring component operable to load balance traffic around a ring network by tagging frames received from the second port of the LAG component with an id of a first virtual local area network (VLAN) and tagging frames received from the third port of the LAG component with an id of a second VLAN, wherein the ring component includes: a first port operable for sending tagged frames to the core bridge on the first VLAN, wherein the first VLAN is configured to extend from the first port of the ring component of the network node to a first plurality of nodes in the ring and to the core bridge and; a second port operable for sending tagged frames with the second VLAN id to the core bridge via the second VLAN, wherein the second VLAN is configured to extend from the second port of the ring component of the network node to a second plurality of nodes in the ring and to the core bridge.