Patent ID: 8320279

Claim:
A method of simplifying the provisioning and management of network-based virtual private networks (VPNs), the method comprising: generating, by a service management system (SMS), a routing configuration for each of a plurality of network-based customer virtual private networks (VPNs) for a plurality of customers based on (i) site reachability information for a plurality of service processing switches and (ii) a global customer routing profile for a network-based customer VPN of the plurality of network-based customer VPNs; provisioning, by the SMS, a plurality of virtual routers (VRs) distributed among the plurality of service processing switches to support the plurality of network-based customer VPNs based on the routing configurations; receiving, at the SMS, a custom routing profile for the network-based customer VPN, the custom routing profile identifying one or more routing protocols to be used for one or more segments of the network-based customer VPN; and automatically reconfiguring, by the SMS, the network-based customer VPN by programmatically generating appropriate routing configurations for VRs of the plurality of VRs partitioned to the network-based customer VPN based on the site reachability information and the custom routing profile.