Method of providing redundancy and load sharing among multiple LECs in an asynchronous mode network

In a network consisting of a plurality of network devices, some of which are switches, and an emulated local area network (ELAN), said ELAN having K LAN emulation configuration servers (LECSs), one or more LAN emulation servers (LESs), one or more LAN emulation clients (LECs) and a network management system (NMS), a method of establishing a connection between a LEC and a LECS, said method comprising the steps of:

• monitoring said plurality of network devices on a continuous basis so as to construct a physical and logical topology of said network from information collected;
• maintaining a main active list consisting of a maximum of N LECSs wherein said active list consists of M LECSs at any point in time, wherein M is less than or equal to N;
• generating M active lists from said main active list whereby each active list contains the same contents but in a unique order to other active lists;
• dividing said network into M groups of switches;
• assigning and storing one of said active lists to each group within said M groups of switches;
• and
• wherein K, M and N are positive integers.