Patent ID: 7966420

Claim:
A method for providing connectivity fault management (CFM) for a multi-tiered network, the method comprising: receiving a link trace message (LTM) at a provider edge (PE) router, the PE router interfacing an Ethernet and a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network, wherein the LTM message is originated from a first Ethernet node and destined to a second Ethernet node; and in response to the LTM message, performing the following steps comprising: forwarding from the PE router the LTM message to the second Ethernet node along a path between the first and second Ethernet nodes within the MPLS network, initiating at the PE router an MPLS trace session, including generating an MPLS trace message based on the LTM message and sending the MPLS trace message to one or more MPLS nodes along the path, wherein generating an MPLS trace message comprises translating the LTM message to the MPLS trace message based on Ethernet CFM and MPLS OAM mapping information maintained within the PE router, receiving one or more MPLS trace reply messages from the one or more MPLS nodes of the MPLS network, wherein the one or more MPLS trace reply messages are received in response to the MPLS trace message generated based on the LTM message, generating a first link trace reply (LTR) message based on the one or more MPLS trace reply messages, wherein the LTM message and the first LTR message are compatible with an Ethernet CFM standard, wherein the MPLS trace message and MPLS reply message are compatible with an MPLS operations administration and management (OAM) standard, sending the first LTR message to the first Ethernet node over the Ethernet, receiving a second LTR message from one or more nodes along the path, wherein the second LTR message is received in response to the LTM message, and forwarding the second LTR message from the PE router to the first Ethernet node.