Patent ID: 8411688

Claim:
A method for use at a first node of a network, the first node receiving on an input path and an associated ingress port, Ethernet frames originated by a source node and destined for a second node of the network, and forwarding on a first output path and an associated first egress port, the received Ethernet frames towards the second node, the method comprising the steps of: locally detecting by the first node, a failure along the first output path at a point between the first and second nodes; re-routing by the first node, the received Ethernet frames along a second output path, different than the first output path, towards the second node, wherein the re-routing is visible only internally within the first node and the second output path is associated with a second egress port different than the first egress port, wherein the first and second egress ports are associated with different respective indications and the different respective indications are also applied to the Ethernet frames, the frames being offered to the first and second egress ports and only forwarded by a given one of the egress ports if there is a match between the indication associated with the given egress port and the indication applied to the offered frames, and wherein the frames are caused to be rerouted from the first path to the second path following the detection of the failure by changing the respective indications associated with the frames offered to the first and second egress ports; and at the second egress port, changing the indications applied to the frames again, to restore them to their previous values, before the frames are sent out from the first node; wherein the first and second output paths are not pre-provisioned in other network nodes, the second egress port is not the ingress port, and the first node does not send a message to the second node to notify the second node that the frames have been re-routed from the first path to the second path.