Patent ID: 7668116

Claim:
A method comprising: registering, by a first label switching router having been identified as a root of a prescribed transport tree for transport of a prescribed group of data packets, at least two next hop label switching routers as belonging to the prescribed transport tree based on receiving respective label mapping messages, each label mapping message specifying a prescribed identifier of the prescribed transport tree and a corresponding label used by the corresponding next hop label switching router for identifying the data packets assigned to the prescribed transport tree; detecting by the first label switching router a prescribed condition indicating the first label switching router is to be removed from service as the root of the prescribed transport tree; and outputting, by the first label switching router, label distribution protocol messages for the prescribed transport tree to each of the next hop label switching routers determined as belonging to the prescribed transport tree, each label distribution protocol message indicating the first label switching router is to be removed from the service as the root of the prescribed transport tree, enabling the label switching routers within the prescribed transport tree to join an alternate root node of a corresponding alternate transport tree, for transport of the data packets via the alternate transport tree.