Patent ID: 8364822

Claim:
An apparatus for controlling virtual private network (VPN) communication in a network comprising: a first edge device in said network, the first edge device being directly connected to at least one customer edge device; said first edge device having a common database (common DB), the common DB being used for setting a path between said first edge device and another edge device in said network when a path setting request is issued by a customer to establish a first VPN communication between the first edge device and the another edge device and being used for supplying network information that is different than network information supplied for a different customer and being used for exchanging information between devices in the network, the common DB storing a plurality of pieces of link information to which a plurality of VPNIDs are added, each piece of link information being information about a link; said first edge device having a link information setting section or setting the plurality of pieces of link information in the common DB; said first edge device having a link information exchanging section for exchanging link information between the first edge device and the another edge device; said first edge device having a route calculating section which determines a transferring route for control information which is used for exchanging the link information; said first edge device having one or more VPNDBs, each VPNDB is a database corresponding to a different VPN and storing link information for the corresponding VPN, a given VPNDB being used to exchange network information between edge devices which belong to the corresponding VPN and customer edge devices which belong to the corresponding VPN; said first edge device having a VPNDB generating section for generating the VPNDBs; said first edge device having a VPNID setting device for categorizing the plurality of pieces of link information stored in the common DB in accordance with the VPN related to each piece of link information and for adding VPNID as information for identifying each VPN to each piece of link information; and said first edge device having a filtering section for extracting the link information to which the same VPNID is added from the plurality of pieces of link information stored in the common DB to which the VPNIDs are added and for storing the extracted link information in a corresponding VPNDB, wherein a given customer edge device is notified of network information only for the VPN to which the given customer edge device belongs, and if the value of a bandwidth included in the link information is changed, the link information exchanging section exchanges the link information between the the first edge device and the another edge device.