Patent ID: 8908527

Claim:
A method, comprising: receiving traffic at an access component of a local network edge device in a computer network; and if the local network edge device is aware of a remote network edge device in the computer network used to reach a destination of the traffic, generating a frame for the traffic, the frame comprising a virtual circuit label corresponding to a particular virtual service of the traffic, and a remote context label that identifies an access component of the remote network edge device to which the traffic is to be forwarded upon arrival at the remote network edge device, the access component being a portion of the remote network edge device that is capable of determining the particular virtual service of the traffic from the virtual circuit label, until the remote network edge device becomes aware of a local context label, including, in the frame, the local context label of the access component of the local network edge device which received the traffic in the frame, forwarding the frame from the local network edge device towards the remote network edge device, waiting a timeout period during which the local context label is not included within frames for the traffic; and after the timeout period, again including the local context label within frames for the traffic to refresh the awareness of the remote network edge device of the local context label.