Patent ID: 8902794

Claim:
A method, comprising: broadcasting a switching node identifier associated with a first link-state protocol enabled switching node to a plurality of link-state protocol enabled switching nodes, the plurality of link-state protocol enabled switching nodes capable of communication with one another by a link-state protocol cloud; broadcasting a priority associated with the first link-state protocol enabled switching node to the plurality of link-state protocol enabled switching nodes; broadcasting connectivity information of the first link-state protocol enabled switching node to the plurality of link-state protocol enabled switching nodes using the link-state protocol cloud, the connectivity information including connectivity of the first link-state protocol enabled switching node with at least one spanning tree protocol enabled switching node; and determining a proxy forwarder node for the at least one spanning tree protocol enabled switching node based upon a priority associated with each of the plurality of link-state protocol enabled switching nodes, the proxy forwarder node configured to determine a master node forwarder for the at least one spanning tree protocol enabled switching node from the plurality of link-state protocol enabled nodes.