Patent ID: 8169922

Claim:
A method of diagnosing a problem associated with a route group in a network comprising: determining whether a route group associated with a virtual private network site exists, the virtual private network site being associated with a customer, route group existence information being retrieved from the virtual private network site in response to determining that the route group associated with the virtual private network exists; mapping current route information stored in a virtual routing and forwarding table and associated with a customer edge router to the route group based on a selected customer edge router Internet Protocol address; comparing inventory route information associated with the route group to current route information associated with the customer edge router using a service provider unit implementing a diagnostic engine, the router being associated with the route group; determining, by the service provider unit, whether there is a problem associated with the route group based on whether there is a mismatch between the inventory route information and the current route information associated with the customer edge router in response to comparing inventory route information; checking a virtual routing and forwarding link from a provider edge router to a customer edge router by the service provider unit in response to determining that there is no mismatch between the inventory route information and the current route information associated with the customer edge router; and checking a next hop Internet Protocol address for a failed virtual routing and forwarding link based on checking the virtual routing and forwarding link from the provider edge router to the customer edge router using the service provider unit.