Patent ID: 7644317

Claim:
A method of detecting and isolating a fault of a Virtual Private Local Area Network service (VPLS) that provides Ethernet-based multipoint to multipoint communication, comprising: broadcasting heartbeat messages, each heartbeat message being broadcast at a periodic interval, by each of a plurality of maintenance end point (MEP) devices associated with service instance of the VPLS; receiving, by each of the MEP devices, the heartbeat messages broadcast at the periodic interval from other MEP devices; snooping the heartbeat messages by each of one or more maintenance intermediate point (MIP) devices, MAC address information contained in the heartbeat messages being catalogued by the MIP devices in a table that is separate from a transient filtering database, the MAC address information identifying a data path through the one or more MIP devices; identifying, by a MEP device, a fault occurrence when the MEP device fails to receive an expected heartbeat message at the periodic interval from one of the other MEP devices; and initiating a fault isolation procedure in response to the fault occurrence.