Patent ID: 8005088

Claim:
A network management system for managing a plurality of customer multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) virtual private networks (VPNs), the VPNs having overlapping interne protocol (IP) addresses, the system comprising: a storage, implemented on a network management system node, that stores a host file that associates a host name corresponding to a network element within one of the customer VPNs that have the overlapping IP addresses with an IP address and a route distinguisher; a label database, populated by the network management system node, that stores at least one multi-protocol label switching label for the host name indexed by a concatenation of the IP address and the route distinguisher; and a packet constructor that creates packets destined for the network element by using the at least one multi-protocol label switching label obtained from the label database based upon the concatenation of the IP address and the route distinguisher.