Method and system to avoid temporary traffic loss with bgp ethernet vpn multi-homing with data-plane mac address learning

A system for avoiding temporary traffic loss in a network, comprising:

• a first host computer;
• a second host computer coupled to the first host computer through the network;
• a first provider edge device retaining path information including a MAC address for the first host in a control plane as a dynamic address, upon indication of withdrawal of the first host from a second provider edge device;
• and
• a timer controlling a period of re-advertisement and re-routing of network traffic to the first host, wherein the first provider edge device removes the first host from a data plane and generates a new route to advertise the first host MAC address as an address that the first provider edge device has dynamically learnt to cause other provider edge devices to receive the new route and adjust their respective control plane routes prior to expiration of the timer.

A computer program product, comprising a non-transitory computer-readable medium having a computer-readable program code embodied therein, the computer-readable program code adapted to be executed by one or more processors to perform a method of avoiding temporary traffic loss in a network, comprising:

• retaining, in each provider edge device of a first plurality of provider edge devices coupled through the network to a first host computer, path information including a MAC address for the first host computer in a control plane as a dynamic address, wherein a second host computer is coupled to the network through a second plurality of provider edge devices coupled to the first provider edge devices;
• maintaining, in each provider edge device, its own routing table listing network addresses of the other provider edge devices as multi-homed peers;
• and
• advertising, by a failure recovery process in each provider edge device, all multi-homed peer network addresses as addresses that each respective provider edge device has dynamically learnt in the control plane such that when a provider edge device receives a route with a locally connected host, it re-advertises the host address on its own.