Patent ID: 7912936

Claim:
A computerized method for managing interworking protocols comprising the following computer-implemented steps: a service management system (SMS), communicatively coupled with a plurality of service processing switches of a service provider, operable to automatically establish a logical network connection among a plurality of subscriber sites, using a policy-based provisioning methodology to provision subscriber interfaces of service processing switches associated with the plurality of subscriber sites based upon parameters of a predefined policy, the subscriber interfaces configured to communicate data in accordance with a first protocol, the parameters including one or more of a window size, a window timeout, a number of allowed bad events, an event window size and a keep-alive interval; the SMS provisioning transport network interfaces of the service processing switches to provide a transport between the subscriber interfaces, the transport network interfaces communicating in accordance with a second protocol; and the SMS creating a first-protocol-over-second-protocol (FPoSP) Virtual Private Network (VPN) through which the plurality of subscriber sites securely exchange data by establishing a virtual router (VR) within the service processing switches corresponding to each subscriber interface, the VRs communicate the data between the service processing switches by encapsulating packets received from the plurality of subscriber sites within packets of the second protocol and transmitting the encapsulated packets through the transport network interfaces.