Alcatel Lucent

Jean-Francois Cartier

David Elie-Dit-Cosaque

Laurence Rose

Girish Chiruvolu

Jessy Victor Rouyer

Ljubisa Tancevski

Anees Narsinh

L Michele Goodwin

James A Hitzelberger

Levillain Philippe

Customer virtual local area networks (C-VLANs) connecting multiple LAN segments are set up through a provider network (). Provider edge bridges (PEs) are coupled to customer edge bridges (CEs) to provide a transparent link between LAN segments. To determine whether a backdoor link is used in the C-VLAN topology, PEs monitor MAC address from a predetermined time after a TCN is received to determine if there are contradictory addresses or new addresses relative to the existing MAC address tables (or forwarding databases) that are indicative of a backdoor link. If so, an unlearning message is sent to bridges in the provider domain. In another embodiment, CEs set a snoop bit to indicate which TCNs must be snooped.

Method and apparatus for updating provider domain due to customer TCNs

Growing community of inventors

Treillieres, France

Jean-Francois Cartier