Patent ID: 8873378

Claim:
A switching method for Ethernet path protection, comprising: setting, at an endpoint of a protection group, a Traffic Engineering Service Instance (TESI) protected by the protection group, wherein the protection group comprises a working entity and a protection entity, and the working entity is a portion of a path that the TESI traverses; configuring a Filter Data Base (FDB) entry at the endpoint of the protection group for an Ethernet Switching Path (ESP) of the TESI; wherein essential information of the configured FDB entry comprises: a destination Media Access Control (MAC) address, a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) identification and an outbound port number; the outbound port number further comprises a working outbound port number and one or more protection outbound ports number; the working outbound port number corresponds to the working entity of the protection group, and the protection outbound port number corresponds to the protection entity; detecting statuses of a working entity and a protection entity arranged in the protection group; and updating the FDB entry at the endpoint of the protection group to implement path protection switching, according to the outbound port number configured for the ESP of the TESI at the endpoint of the protection group and in conjunction with a corresponding protection switching mechanism selected in current status detection; wherein updating the FDB entry at the endpoint of the protection group comprises: under a normal condition that no fault of the working entity is detected, selecting the working outbound port number as the outbound port number in the FDB entry of the ESP; or, under a condition that a fault of the working entity is detected and no fault of the protection entity is detected, updating the outbound port number in the FDB entry of the corresponding ESP to be the preset protection outbound port number corresponding to the protection entity so as to redirect the TESI to the protection entity; or, when the protection group operates in a non-revertive mode, fault recovery of the working entity is detected and no fault of the protection entity is detected, maintaining the outbound port number in the FDB entry corresponding to the ESP to be the corresponding protection outbound port number; or, when the protection group operates in a revertive mode, fault recovery of the working entity is detected and no fault of the protection entity is detected, after the endpoint of the protection group waiting for a period of time, updating or restoring the outbound port number in the FDB entry of the corresponding ESP to be the working outbound port number so as to recover and redirect the TESI to the working entity.