Patent ID: 7373401

Claim:
A method of segmenting a label switched path (LSP) present in a multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) network, the LSP having an ingress label switch router (LSR), an egress LSR and intermediate nodes, the method comprising steps of: determining a subpath to be segmented in the LSP; defining segments in the subpath based on the OAM capability of said intermediate nodes; and associating a label to each segment defined in the subpath; wherein the ingress LSR and the egress LSR have an OAM capability; at least a subset of said intermediate nodes are LSRs having an OAM capability; and the step of defining segments in the subpath includes defining segments between LSRs having the OAM capability; and further comprising a step of notifying nodes in the LSP of the segmentation of the subpath, wherein notifying the nodes includes providing information to the nodes regarding a processing of data transfer units (DTUs) labeled in accordance with the labels associated with the segments of the subpath.