Patent ID: 8724627

Claim:
A network, comprising: a Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) network, including three or more interconnected VPLS nodes, with at least two of said VPLS nodes active-active multi-homed to a same external node for receiving Layer-2 (L2) packets of a same LAN service natively to the VPLS network from the same external node; where said VPLS nodes are configured to appropriately forward frames throughout the VPLS network: without looping of a frame sent by the same external node back to the same external node, and without flooding multiple copies of a frame to the same external node, while performing learning of addresses in forwarding tables of said VPLS nodes such that said forwarding tables of said VPLS nodes converge despite frames of a same VPLS instance of the same LAN service being contemporaneously received by said at least two of said VPLS nodes, encapsulated in a Multiprotocol Label Switching (MPLS) packets including in the label stack of the MPLS packets a MPLS label identifying the external node as the source of correspondingly received frames by said at least two of said VPLS nodes from the same external node, and the MPLS packets being correspondingly forwarded within the VPLS network by said at least two of said VPLS nodes.