Patent ID: 8565248

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a quality of service (QoS) resource reservation request at an ingress provider edge (PE) device from a customer edge (CE) device; determining a path state associated with the QoS resource reservation request, the path state including a previous hop address; storing the path state and storing an association between the path state and a virtual private network routing and forwarding table (VRF) associated with the QoS resource reservation request; constructing an outgoing message that includes information allowing an egress PE device to identify the virtual private network routing and forwarding table (VRF) associated with a resource reservation resulting from the QoS resource reservation request, wherein the outgoing message is addressed to the egress PE device, and wherein the ingress PE device and the egress PE device are connected by a virtual private network (VPN), thereby creating a direct signaling channel across the VPN between the ingress PE device and the egress PE device; and transmitting the outgoing message to the egress PE device.