Methods and systems for providing redundant connectivity across a network using a tunneling protocol

A system for providing redundant connectivity across a network, the system comprising:

• (a) a first switch configured to operate in a master state wherein the first switch advertises a route to a movable local endpoint IP address to routers in an intermediate network and establishes incoming and outgoing paths and a tunnel for carrying local network traffic over the intermediate network;
• (b) a second switch configured to operate in a slave state wherein the second switch establishes a redundant outgoing path across the intermediate network;
• and
• (c) standby routing protocol software adapted to execute on the first and second switches for monitoring relative connectivity provided by the switches and dynamically switching the first switch to operate in the slave state and the second switch to operate in the master state in response to detecting that the relative connectivity of the second switch exceeds that of the first switch.

A switch for tunneling traffic across a network, the switch comprising:

• (a) a first input/output module for receiving traffic from a first network;
• (b) a second input/output module for tunneling traffic received from the first network to a second network across an intermediate network;
• (c) a third input/output module for receiving connectivity information from a companion switch;
• and
• (d) a standby routing protocol module operatively associated with the input/output modules, for monitoring connectivity information provided by the companion switch and dynamically establishing and tearing down tunnels with the second network based on the connectivity information.

A computer program product comprising computer executable instructions embodied in a computer readable medium for performing steps comprising:

• (a) tunneling layer 2 traffic from a first switch across a network to a remote endpoint;
• (b) comparing connectivity to the remote endpoint provided by the first switch with connectivity to the remote endpoint provided by a second switch;
• and
• (c) in response to determining that connectivity of the second switch exceeds that of the first switch, ceasing the tunneling of layer 2 traffic from the first switch and initiating tunneling of the layer 2 traffic from the second switch.