Patent ID: 7742477

Claim:
A method of providing an autonomous system (AS) interconnect, the method comprising: including a control plane and a data plane in a network device, the network device in a first AS; providing a single interface in the control plane for a plurality of Virtual Routing and Forwarding instances (VRFs) configured in the network device; running one routing protocol session on the single interface for all of the VRFs; and providing a plurality of interfaces in the data plane, each one of the interfaces for a respective one of the VRFs, wherein providing the interfaces in the data plane comprises including each one of the interfaces in a respective one of the VRFs, and wherein running the one routing protocol session includes: learning at least two Virtual Private Network (VPN) prefixes from data received from a second AS over the single interface via the one routing protocol session; installing VRF forwarding entries into at least two of the VRFs, each one of the VRF forwarding entries corresponding to a respective one of the at least two VPN prefixes, a first one of the at least two VPN prefixes being imported into a single one of the at least two of the VRFs, and a second one of the at least two VPN prefixes being imported into the at least two of the VRFs; and advertising at least two imported VPN prefixes at the network device in response to the second one of the at least two VPN prefixes being imported into the at least two of the VRFs, each of the at least two imported VPN prefixes identifying a respective one of the at least two of the VRFs, each of the at least two imported VPN prefixes being different from the second one of the at least two VPN prefixes, and each of the at least two imported VPN prefixes being different from the other of the at least two imported VPN prefixes.