Patent ID: 7411909

Claim:
A method for suppressing flow of data packets in a network, the network comprising at least one virtual local area network (VLAN), at least one provider edge (PE) having at least one active virtual circuit (VC), at least one virtual forwarding instance (VFI) and a multi protocol label switching (MPLS) system, the method comprising: specifying various types of data packets that need to be regulated; identifying the type of data packets generated from and sent to each VLAN; configuring a level of suppression for each type of data packets generated from and sent to each VLAN; determining a number of active virtual circuits (VCs) for the VLAN, wherein the number of active VCs vary dynamically; determining rate of flow of the identified types of data packets sent to the MPLS from the VLAN based on replication of the one or more input packets on the determined number of active VCs; and allowing the flow of data packets from the VLAN to the MPLS system, if the flow of data packets is below the level of suppression.