Patent ID: 7787480

Claim:
A method of routing frames in a Transparent Interconnection of Lots of Links (‘TRILL’) network using service virtual local area network (‘VLAN’) identifiers, the TRILL network including a plurality of bridge nodes, at least one of the plurality of bridge nodes operating as an ingress bridge node through which the frames are received into the TRILL network, and at least one of the plurality of bridge nodes operating as an egress bridge node through which the frames are transmitted out of the TRILL network, at least one ingress bridge node and at least one egress bridge node assigned a unique service VLAN identifier, the method comprising the steps of: receiving, by one of the plurality of bridge nodes from the ingress bridge node, a frame for transmission to a destination node, the destination node connected to the TRILL network through the egress bridge node, the received frame including a customer VLAN identifier, a service VLAN identifier for the ingress bridge node, and a destination node address for the destination node, the received frame not having mac-in-mac encapsulation; adding, by the one bridge node to the received frame in dependence upon the service VLAN identifier for the ingress bridge node and the destination node address for the destination node, a TRILL header conforming to the TRILL protocol, the TRILL header including an ingress bridge nickname and an egress bridge nickname; and routing, by the one bridge node to the egress bridge node through which the destination node connects to the network, the received frame in dependence upon the ingress bridge nickname and the egress bridge nickname.