Patent ID: 8817594

Claim:
A method of determining an interconnect node for establishment of a forwarding path for transmitting service based data for a given one of a plurality of services within a network system comprising a first network and a second network, wherein the first network comprises: a plurality of network interconnect nodes connectable to a plurality of external links towards the second network, one or more internal links connecting the network interconnect nodes with each other, the method comprising: assigning interconnect node status information to the network interconnect nodes, wherein a network interconnect node to which a passive status is assigned is only allowed to transmit service based data between an external link and another interconnect node of the first network, or between two other interconnect nodes of the first network, and wherein only a network interconnect node to which an active status is assigned is allowed to send or receive service based data to or from the first network, wherein the assignment of the active status to each of the plurality of network interconnect nodes is done a per service basis, such that for each of the plurality of services one of the plurality of network interconnect nodes is assigned the active status, and determining an interconnect node having an active status for establishment of a forwarding path for the given service, the forwarding path including an external link, wherein the determination is based on the respective status information assigned to the network interconnect nodes for the given service.