Patent ID: 7307991

Claim:
An MPLS network system comprising: a first edge node including: a generation module generating a key value for determining an allocating destination link in a way that uses, as input values, a piece of source identifying information and a piece of destination identifying information contained in a header of a forwarding target frame before being attached with an MPLS header enabling the frame to be forwarded across within an MPLS network on the basis of an MPLS protocol; an embedding module embedding the key value generated by said generation module into a specified field in the MPLS header; and a transmitting module transmitting the MPLS frame containing the key value embedded into the specified field in its MPLS header to the MPLS network; and a second edge node including: an extraction module extracting the key value from the specified field in the MPLS header of the MPLS frame received via the MPLS network; and a determining module determining one physical link as the allocating destination link among a plurality of physical links that are logically bundled beforehand as one link on the basis of the key value extracted by said extraction module.