Patent ID: 7136350

Claim:
A method for supporting virtual path/virtual channel (VP/VC) groups in asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) switching systems that implement ATM automatic protection switching (APS) in which traffic flows from a source on two paths and a destination selects traffic from only one of the paths at a time for further processing, the method comprising: creating a groups table, the groups table having an entry for each of the two paths of every active VP/VC group, each active VP/VC group having an associated set of member circuits, each entry indicating whether the cells for that path of that VP/VC group should be forwarded or discarded, each entry referenced by means of a pointer field; accessing a relevant entry in the groups table when a cell arrives on one of the two paths, the relevant entry associated with the one of the two paths, the relevant entry including a status value; and discarding the cell if the status value is indicative of a discard status or forwarding the cell if the status value is not indicative of the discard status.