Patent ID: 8493845

Claim:
A network element, comprising: a forwarding plane configured to forward packets on a packet network; and a control plane configured: to determine a primary Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) tunnel to a destination network element for a Virtual Private Network (VPN), the primary MPLS tunnel traversing a first input/output (I/O) card; to determine a secondary MPLS tunnel to the destination network element for the VPN, the secondary MPLS tunnel traversing a second I/O card different from the first I/O card; and after determination of the primary and secondary MPLS tunnels: to signal the forwarding plane to forward packets associated with the VPN over the primary MPLS tunnel; to detect a failure associated with the primary MPLS tunnel; and in response to detection of the failure, to signal the forwarding plane to forward the packets associated with the VPN over the secondary MPLS tunnel.