Patent ID: 8705534

Claim:
A method of providing a Port-based interface in a Provider Edge Bridge, wherein the Provider Edge Bridge includes a Customer Virtual Local Area Network (C-VLAN) component having a Customer Edge Port (CEP) and a plurality of Provider Edge Ports (PEPs) and includes a first Service Virtual Local Area Network (S-VLAN) component connected to the C-VLAN component and to a Provider Bridged Network, the method comprising: implementing in the Provider Edge Bridge, a second S-VLAN component connected to the C-VLAN component, to the first S-VLAN component, and to customer equipments; and configuring the first S-VLAN component, the second S-VLAN component, and the C-VLAN component to provide the Port-based interface by: designating as S-VLAN Remote Customer Ports (RCPs), a plurality of ports on the first S-VLAN component facing the Provider Bridged Network when the ports are connecting internal services in the Provider Bridged Network to provide the Port-based interface to the customer equipments; configuring by the RCPs, a set of S-VLAN Identifiers (S-VIDs) to be treated as a Port-based type of Remote Customer Service Interface (R-CSI); configuring by the RCPs, an S-VID Port-based interface table in which an S-VID inside the Provider Bridged Network is split to a number of S-VLAN services; assigning a distinct Customer Network Port (CNP) on the first S-VLAN component to each of the configured S-VIDs; configuring a plurality of CNPs on the first S-VLAN component to have the same S-VID according to the S-VID Port-based interface table; configuring CNPs on the first S-VLAN component to connect to CNPs on the second S-VLAN component; and configuring the CNPs and a Provider Network Port (PNP) facing the customer equipments on the second S-VLAN component with different S-VIDs to split the S-VID inside the Provider Bridged Network according to the S-VID Port-based interface table.