Patent ID: 8248922

Claim:
A method operable in a ring network including a plurality of stack elements, the method comprising: associating a first Media Access Control (MAC) stack address with each of the plurality of stack elements in the ring, wherein the first MAC stack address is a MAC address of a first primary stack element of the plurality of stack elements in the ring; determining a first failure in the ring; determining a second failure in the ring wherein communication is lost with the first primary stack element and responsive thereto, electing a new primary stack element from the plurality of the stack elements; in response to determining that a time between the first failure and the second failure is greater than a predetermined amount of time, associating a new MAC stack address to each of the plurality of the stack elements, wherein the new MAC stack address is the MAC address of the new primary stack element; and in response to determining that a time between the first failure and the second failure is less than the predetermined amount of time, retaining the first MAC stack address as a stack address associated with the new primary stack element and the plurality of stack elements.