Patent ID: 7613130

Claim:
A method for determining the relationship of a first Customer Edge Router (CE) with a Virtual Private Network (VPN), comprising: assigning in advance at least one Route Target (RT) value for each CE device in a network to form an RT table of that CE and assigning a Hub RT value and a Spoke RT value for each of more than one created CE Route Community (CERC), wherein the method further comprises the following a). dividing the RT table of the first CE to be matched with a designated CERC into an import RT table and an export RT table based on the import and export attributes of the RT values in the RT table; b). determining whether the first CE belongs to the designated CERC, and whether the first CE is a Hub CE or a Spoke CE in the designated CERC based on the RT values in the import RT table and the export RT table obtained in a) as well as the Hub RT value and the Spoke RT value assigned to the designated CERC.