Patent ID: 8681658

Claim:
A method comprising applying one or more rules to network topology data of a network to produce a plurality of route targets, wherein the network includes customer edge routers and provider edge routers; grouping a set of route targets from the plurality of route targets to produce a group of route target sets; removing duplicate route target sets from the group of route target sets to produce a reduced size of route target sets; generating a data record including information related to the group of route target sets based on the reduced size of route target sets; storing the data record in a memory, wherein the memory includes data to map route target data for each of a plurality of provider edge routers of the network, and wherein the data indicates that two or more of the customer edge routers of the network that have a same set of route targets on a corresponding provider edge router of the network share a virtual routing and forwarding element; and provisioning the network based on the data record.