Patent ID: 8111616

Claim:
An apparatus for constructing a repair path for use in the event of failure of an inter-Autonomous System (AS) routing connection between respective components in first and second routing domains of a data communications network, the apparatus being arranged to: assign a propagatable repair address to a repair tunnel end point in a second Autonomous System (AS) for use in the event of failure of an inter-Autonomous System (AS) routing connection between a first AS and the second AS; and propagate the repair address to the repair tunnel end point via data communications network components other than the inter-AS routing connection to define a tunnel around the inter-AS routing connection; wherein the propagatable repair address is an Internet Protocol (IP) address selected from an unused address space; wherein the propagatable repair address is different from an ordinary prefix advertised for transmitting traffic via the inter-AS routing connection; wherein the apparatus comprises one or more computing devices.