OPTIMIZATIONS FOR PE-CE PROTOCOL SESSION HANDLING IN A MULTI-HOMED TOPOLOGY

Apparatuses and methods are provided in which a CE protocol communication session is established, at a first provider edge network device (PE), for customer equipment device (CE) multi-homed to the first PE and one or more second PEs. The first PE is an owner of the CE protocol communication session. The first PE signals to the one or more second PEs an ownership message indicating that the first PE is the owner of the CE protocol communication session. The ownership message includes parameters that enable one or more second PEs to install in their respective forwarding tables a redirect policy to instruct the respective PE to forward packets of this session to the first PE via an overlay segment. The first PE receives the packets of the session via the overlay segment based on the ownership message.