Method and Apparatus for Transporting Ethernet Services

Abstract

Frames of customer traffic may be encapsulated by adding Mac-in-Mac (MiM) encapsulation fields for transportation of the frames over a portion of provider network. The MiM encapsulated traffic may be further encapsulated using VPLS by adding VPLS encapsulation fields for transportation of the frames over another portion of the provider network. The MiM encapsulations use provider network_MAC addresses which enables VPLS MAC learning to occur using provider network MAC address space. MiM tunnels are mapped to VPLS service instances which are assigned pseudowire tags for transportation over the VPLS portion of provider network. The MiM header is retained when the MiM encapsulated frames are transported over the VPLS portion of the provider network. As VPLS frames exit the core network, the VPLS encapsulation fields are removed to extract the original MiM encapsulated frames for further transportation over the MiM portion of the provider network.

What is claimed is: 
     
         1 - 22 . (canceled) 
     
     
         23 . An Ethernet node for interfacing with an MPLS network to provide Ethernet services over the MPLS network, the Ethernet node comprising a forwarding engine adapted:
 to receive a customer Ethernet frame, the customer Ethernet frame comprising a customer destination MAC address field, a customer source MAC address field and a service tag field;   to determine a MAC-in-MAC service instance associated with the customer Ethernet frame based on a value of the service tag field;   to encapsulate the customer Ethernet frame with a backbone destination MAC address field, a backbone source MAC address field and an IEEE 802.1ah I-Tag field corresponding to the MAC-in-MAC service instance;   to determine a Virtual Private LAN Service (VPLS) service instance associated with the customer Ethernet frame based on the value of the service tag field; and   to forward the encapsulated customer Ethernet frame to to the determined VPLS service instance.   
     
     
         24 . The Ethernet node of  claim 23 , wherein the forwarding engine is adapted:
 to receive a VPLS and MAC-in-MAC encapsulated customer Ethernet frame comprising a VPLS pseudowire tag field, a backbone destination MAC address field, a backbone source MAC address field, an IEEE 802.1ah I-Tag field, a customer destination MAC address field, a customer source MAC address field and a service tag field;   to remove the VPLS encapsulation to extract the MAC-in-MAC encapsulated customer Ethernet frame;   to forward the MAC-in-MAC encapsulated customer Ethernet frame on an interface associated with the pseudowire tag field; and   to remove the MAC-in-MAC encapsulation to extract the customer Ethernet frame; and   to forward the customer Ethernet frame on an interface associated with the IEEE 802.1 ah I-Tag field.   
     
     
         25 . The Ethernet node of  claim 23 , wherein the I-Tag field carries an IEEE 802.1ah I-SID. 
     
     
         26 . The Ethernet node of  claim 24 , wherein the I-SID is associated with a VLAN and a port over which the customer frame is to be forwarded. 
     
     
         27 . The Ethernet node of  claim 23 , wherein content of the customer destination MAC address field is associated with a VLAN and a port over which the customer frame is to be forwarded. 
     
     
         28 . The Ethernet node of  claim 23 , adapted to encapsulate the customer Ethernet frame by encapsulating the customer Ethernet frame with a B-Tag carrying a B-VID. 
     
     
         29 . The Ethernet node of  claim 28 , wherein content of the pseudowire tag field is associated with the B-VID. 
     
     
         30 . An Ethernet node for interfacing with an MPLS network to provide Ethernet services over the MPLS network, the Ethernet node comprising a forwarding engine adapted:
 to receive a VPLS and MAC-in-MAC encapsulated customer Ethernet frame comprising a VPLS pseudowire tag field, a backbone destination MAC address field, a backbone source MAC address field, an IEEE 802.1ah I-Tag field, a customer destination MAC address field, a customer source MAC address field and a service tag field;   to remove the VPLS encapsulation to extract the MAC-in-MAC encapsulated customer Ethernet frame;   to forward the MAC-in-MAC encapsulated customer Ethernet frame on an interface associated with the pseudowire tag field;   to remove the MAC-in-MAC encapsulation to extract the customer Ethernet frame; and   to forward the customer Ethernet frame on an interface associated with the IEEE 802.1 ah I-Tag field.   
     
     
         31 . An Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) node implementing a Virtual Private LAN service (VPLS), the MPLS node having a forwarding engine adapted:
 to receive a customer Ethernet frame encapsulated with a backbone destination MAC address field, a backbone source MAC address field and an IEEE 802.1ah I-Tag field corresponding to the MAC-in-MAC service instance;   to further encapsulate the customer Ethernet frame for transportation on the MPLS network with a pseudowire tag field corresponding to the VPLS service instance; and   to forward the encapsulated customer Ethernet frame on the MPLS network based on the pseudowire tag field.   
     
     
         32 . The MPLS node of  claim 31 , wherein the forwarding engine is adapted to encapsulate the customer Ethernet frame with a VPLS tunnel tag associated with the backbone destination MAC address field of the encapsulated customer Ethernet frame. 
     
     
         33 . The MPLS node of  claim 31 , wherein the forwarding engine is adapted to forward the encapsulated customer Ethernet frame over a VPLS tunnel associated with the backbone destination MAC address field of the encapsulated customer Ethernet frame. 
     
     
         34 . The MPLS node of  claim 31 , wherein VPLS MAC learning is based on backbone MAC addresses. 
     
     
         35 . The MPLS node of  claim 31 , wherein the pseudowire tag field comprises an MPLS label. 
     
     
         36 . The MPLS node of  claim 31 , wherein the VPLS tunnel tag comprises an MPLS label.