Patent ID: 8780699

Claim:
A method comprising: establishing a bi-directional pseudowire between a first provider edge (PE) router and a second PE router that are both associated with a multi-homed virtual private local area network service (VPLS) customer site associated with a VPLS domain, wherein the first PE router and the second PE router provide the same VPLS customer site with multi-homed, redundant connectivity to a network, wherein the first PE router has a multi-homing designated forwarder status relative to the VPLS customer site, and wherein the second PE router has a multi-homing backup forwarder status relative to the VPLS customer site, wherein the bi-directional pseudowire is established as an auxiliary standby bi-directional pseudowire external to the VPLS domain; stitching, by the second PE router, the bi-directional pseudowire to a link from the second PE router to the VPLS customer site; after establishing the bi-directional pseudowire, detecting a change in topology of the network with the first PE router, wherein the change in topology affects connectivity of the first PE router to the VPLS customer site associated with the VPLS domain; and in response to detecting the change in topology, automatically updating forwarding plane configuration of the first PE router to use the bi-directional pseudowire as an active interface within the VPLS domain for forwarding network traffic to the VPLS customer site; after updating the forwarding plane configuration of the first PE router to use the bi-directional pseudowire as an active interface, sending, by the first PE router, a BGP advertisement to notify peer PE routers of the change in topology of the network, wherein the second PE router comprises one of the peer PE routers; and in response to the second PE router receiving the BGP advertisement from the first PE router, and by the second PE router: breaking the stitching between the bi-directional pseudowire and the link to the VPLS customer site; and associating the link to the VPLS customer site with the VPLS domain as the active link for the VPLS customer site.