Techniques are described for providing aliasing in an active-active multi-homed Provider Backbone Bridging Ethernet Virtual Private Network (PBB-EVPN) network. For example, PE devices of a multi-homed Ethernet segment may send packets received from the PBB-EVPN core network over the Ethernet segment to the customer device even if the receiving PE device has not learned the source MAC address of the CE device. In particular, the PE devices coupled to the multi-homed Ethernet segment may apply aliasing techniques in which a PE device performs a lookup of a BMAC address and the Customer Virtual Local Area Network (C-VLAN), instead of a lookup of a destination MAC address, to determine the path to send the data traffic.

For use in an Ethernet Virtual Private Network (EVPN) in which a site including at least one MAC-addressable device is multihomed, via a customer edge device (CE), to at least two provider edge devices (PE1 and PE2), the potential problem of one of the at least two provider edge devices (PE2) dropping or flooding packets designed for a MAC-addressable device of the multihomed site is solved by controlling advertisements of an auto-discovery per EVPN instance (A-D/EVI) route (or an auto-discovery per Ethernet segment identifier (A-D/ESI) route) to a remote provider edge device (PE3), belonging to the EVPN but not directly connected with the CE. Such advertisements may be controlled by: (a) determining, by PE2, whether or not a MAC-learning condition is met; and (b) responsive to a determination that the MAC-learning condition is met, advertising, by PE2, an A-D/EVI route (or an A-D/ESI route) to the remote provider edge device (PE3), and otherwise, responsive to a determination that the MAC-learning condition is not met, suppressing, by PE2, an A-D/EVI route advertisement (or an A-D/ESI route advertisement).

Various embodiments establish a virtual private network (VPN) between a remote network and a private network. In one embodiment, a first system in the remote network establishes a connection with a central system through a public network. The central system is situated between the first system and a second system in the private network. The first system receives, from the central system and based on establishing the connection, a set of VPN information associated with at least the second system. The first system disconnects from the central system and establishes a VPN directly with the second system through the public network based on the set of VPN information.

An encapsulation address of a first switching device is set so as to be different only in a mask bit in comparison with that of a second switching device. A learning information control unit of a third switching device does not learn the correspondence relation between a source customer address and a source encapsulation address in a first case and a second case. The first case corresponds to a case in which an encapsulated frame is received at an upper-link port and an encapsulation address corresponding to the source customer address is acquired from an address table. The second case corresponds to a case in which a difference between the source encapsulation address and the encapsulation address acquired from the address table lies only in the mask bit.

The present invention provides a method and system for preventing MAC address learning in Provider Backbone Bridge Network (PBBN). In one embodiment, this is accomplished by receiving data frames from at least one operator/client at the first PBB network which has to be communicating to the second PBB network, adding forward path learning information from the received data frames in the first PBB network and translating backbone MAC source address of the received data frame at the first PBB network by replacing the backbone MAC source address with a BEB backbone MAC address, thereby preventing of backbone MAC address learning of the first PBB network in the second PBB network.

A method, apparatus and computer program product for providing multi-homing techniques for SPB networks is presented. A set of UNI nodes that receive multicast packets are determined based on Backbone Media Access Control-Destination Address (BMAC-DA)/I-Tag Service Identifier (I-SID) of received multicast packets for multicast packets within a transport network. A separate Egress Port Mask is determined for each Backbone-Virtual Local Area Network (B-VLAN) of the transport network, wherein the Egress Port Mask is determined such that only one UNI node of the set of UNI nodes forwards said multicast packets. A set of UNI copies of said multicast packets are filtered out by applying the Egress Port Mask, wherein copies that are not in the Egress Port Mask are dropped. Copies of multicast packets that are not dropped are sent out.

Various embodiments establish a virtual private network (VPN) between a remote network and a private network. In one embodiment, a first system in the remote network establishes a connection with a central system through a public network. The central system is situated between the first system and a second system in the private network. The first system receives, from the central system and based on establishing the connection, a set of VPN information associated with at least the second system. The first system disconnects from the central system and establishes a VPN directly with the second system through the public network based on the set of VPN information.

Provided are a method and an apparatus for accessing a shortest path bridging network in a multi-homing manner. The method comprises: receiving an LSP message flooded by an edge node containing an inter-node LAG port in the network, wherein the LSP message carries a B-MAC, a Base VID, and a Portal System Number of the edge node; generating, according to the Base VID and the Portal System Number, a B-VID corresponding to the edge node; and establishing a forwarding table according to the B-MAC and the B-VID; the edge node containing the inter-node LAG port in the network acquiring the B-MAC, the Base VID, and the Portal System Number of the edge node; generating, according to the Base VID and the Portal System Number, the B-VID corresponding to the edge node; and establishing, according to the B-MAC and the B-VID, a mapping table for PBB encapsulation and decapsulation. The disclosure solves the technical problem in the related art that the implementation of the method for accessing a shortest path bridging network in a multi-homing manner is excessively complicated, thereby achieving the technical effect of implementing access to the shortest path bridging network in a multi-homing manner without changing the existing protocol message.

Methods, systems, and computer readable media for modeling packet technology services using a packet virtual network (PVN) are provided. In some aspects, and at a computing platform, a method includes providing a plurality of flow interface objects. Each flow interface object can be associated with a physical device. The method further includes configuring the flow interface objects into a PVN, wherein the flow interface objects represent network devices or device sub-interfaces. The method further includes displaying the PVN for visually modeling an Ethernet and/or a non-Ethernet packet technology service. An exemplary system includes a computing platform having at least one processor and a memory, the computing platform being configured to access a plurality of flow interface objects stored in the memory and a PVN)-modeling module (PVN-MM) for grouping the flow interface objects into a PVN for modeling a service.

A method of communications at an encapsulating bridge includes receiving a packet having an unencapsulated-DA (destination address) and an associated encapsulation identifier. The unencapsulated-DA and the associated encapsulation identifier are used to determine a TxPort-unencapsulated network (unencapsulated network side transmit port) or an encapsulated-DA for the packet. This method reduces latency of processing by reducing lookups, thereby also increasing transmission bandwidth of the communications network. The invention also facilitates embodiments with reduced memory and processing requirements, as compared to conventional implementations. This method is particularly useful for MAC-in-MAC encapsulation.