System and method for aggregating pseudowires

1. A method, comprising:

establishing, by a service provider edge (S-PE) device comprising a processor and a memory, a first aggregate pseudowire (A-PW) between a pair of Terminating Provider Edge devices (T-PEs), said first A-PW comprising a Multi-Segment PW (MS-PW) of a first service class for supporting one or more service pseudowires (S-PWs) between said pair of T-PEs, said S-PWs comprising single-segment PWs (SS-PWs) of said first service class, wherein said establishing comprises:

receiving, from a destination T-PE, a first service label advertised towards a source T-PE; and

advertising, toward a source T-PE, a second service label;

said first and second service labels forming thereby an A-PW between said source T-PE and said destination T-PE, the A-PW being said first A-PW.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein said establishing further comprises:

receiving, from said source T-PE, a third service label advertised towards said destination T-PE; and

advertising, toward said destination T-PE, a fourth service label;

said third and fourth service labels forming thereby a reverse A-PW between said source T-PE and said destination T-PE, the reverse A-PW being said first A-PW.

3. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

establishing, by said service provider edge (S-PE) device, a second aggregate pseudowire (A-PW) between said pair of Terminating Provider Edge devices (T-PEs), said second A-PW comprising a Multi-Segment PW (MS-PW) of a second service class for supporting one or more service pseudowires (S-PWs) between said pair of T-PEs, said S-PWs comprising single-segment PWs (SS-PWs) of said second service class.

4. The method of claim 3 , wherein said establishing of said second A-PW comprises:

receiving, from a destination T-PE, a third service label advertised towards a source T-PE; and

advertising, toward a source T-PE, a fourth service label;

said third and fourth service labels forming thereby an A-PW between said source T-PE and said destination source T-PE, the A-PW being said second A-PW.

5. The method of claim 1 , wherein said establishing is repeated for each of a plurality of additional service classes to provide thereby a corresponding plurality of aggregate pseudowires (A-PWs) between said pair of T-PEs.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein said establishing is repeated for each of a plurality of additional pairs of T-PEs to provide thereby corresponding A-PWs of said first service class between each of said additional pairs of T-PEs.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein said establishing is performed for each of a plurality of pairs of T-PEs, and for each desired service class of said pairs of T-PEs, to provide thereby an A-PW for each desired service class of each pair of T-PEs.

8. The method of claim 1 , wherein said establishing of the first A-PW comprising said MS-PW of the first service class is performed in response to said destination T-PE failing to initiate a S-PW of said first service class with said source T-PE.

9. The method of claim 1 , wherein said establishing is repeated for said first service class to provide thereby a corresponding second A-PW of said first service class between said pairs of T-PEs.

10. The method of claim 9 , wherein said establishing the second A-PW of said first service class is performed in response to said first A-PW of said first service class having insufficient bandwidth to support a desired S-PW of said first service class.

11. The method of claim 1 , further comprising resignaling bandwidth of an existing A-PW with a higher bandwidth in response to said existing A-PW having insufficient bandwidth to support a desired S-PW.

12. The method of claim 11 , further comprising:

in response to a failure of said resignaling, repeating said establishing to provide thereby a corresponding higher bandwidth A-PW of said first service class between said pairs of T-PEs.

13. The method of claim 1 , further comprising establishing a S-PW in response to a S-PW setup message received from a T-PE, said S-PW setup message including a forwarding equivalence class (FEC) type-length-value (TLV) identifying a S-PW FEC Element and an Aggregate FEC TLV that identifies a corresponding bearer FEC Element.

14. The method of claim 13 , wherein said S-PW setup message includes a Bandwidth TLV to specify a bandwidth requirement of said S-PW.

15. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:

in response to a bearer A-PW indicated by the Aggregate FEC TLV of the S-PW setup message not being established, releasing a received label and providing a Label Release Message having a status code indicative of a missing Aggregate FEC.

16. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:

in response to a bearer A-PW indicated by the Aggregate FEC TLV of the S-PW setup message being established, forwarding the S-PW setup message toward a next signaling hop for the Aggregate PW.

17. The method of claim 13 , further comprising:

in response to a S-PW FEC Element indicated by the FEC TLV of the S-PW setup message being established in the context of a different A-PW than the bearer A-PW indicated by the Aggregate FEC TLV of the S-PW setup message, releasing a received label and providing a Label Release Message having a status code indicative of a duplicate Aggregate FEC.

18. A telecom network element, comprising:

a processor; and

a memory for storing program logic, the program logic executed by the processor, the program logic comprising:

logic for establishing, at a service provider edge (S-PE) device, a first aggregate pseudowire (A-PW) between a pair of Terminating Provider Edge devices (T-PEs), said first A-PW comprising a Multi-Segment PW (MS-PW) of a first service class for supporting one or more service pseudowires (S-PWs) between said pair of T-PEs, said S-PWs comprising single-segment PWs (SS-PWs) of said first service class, wherein said establishing comprises:

receiving, from a destination T-PE, a first service label advertised towards a source T-PE; and

advertising, toward a source T-PE, a second service label;

said first and second service labels forming thereby an A-PW between said source T-PE and said destination T-PE, the A-PW being said first A-PW.

19. A tangible and non-transient computer readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by a computer, adapt the operation of the computer to provide a method, the method comprising:

establishing, at a service provider edge (S-PE) device, a first aggregate pseudowire (A-PW) between a pair of Terminating Provider Edge devices (T-PEs), said first A-PW comprising a Multi-Segment PW (MS-PW) of a first service class for supporting one or more service pseudowires (S-PWs) between said pair of T-PEs, said S-PWs comprising single-segment PWs (SS-PWs) of said first service class, wherein said establishing comprises:

receiving, from a destination T-PE, a first service label advertised towards a source T-PE; and

advertising, toward a source T-PE, a second service label;

said first and second service labels forming thereby an A-PW between said source T-PE and said destination T-PE, the A-PW being said first A-PW.