Patent ID: 7886080

Claim:
A method comprising: receiving a change notification at a provider edge bridging device from a customer edge bridging device in response to a change in network topology, the change notification being a bridge protocol datagram unit; associating the change notification with a customer service; identifying at least one destination provider edge bridging device associated with the customer service; clearing an address table associated with the customer service at the provider edge bridging device; encapsulating, after the address table is cleared, the change notification in a data frame such that the change notification is inaccessible by a bridging device that receives the data frame; and tunnelling the data frame from the provider edge bridging device over a tunnel comprising at least one core bridging device to the at least one destination provider edge bridging device associated with the customer service, the at least one core bridging device tunnelling the data frame based on information relating to the destination provider edge bridging device, the tunnelling including ensuring that the at least one core bridging device refrains from clearing an address table therein as a function of the data frame.