Abstract: The invention relates to a local area network comprising at least a ring system which includes a plurality of network nodes coupled via ring connections, which nodes are used for coupling to a station or a network node of another ring system and for switching packets generated by a station or a network node. Switching software is provided distributed over all the network nodes and stations and at least sufficient for the switching operations. The distributed switching software renders an object available for each respective application, which object is combined to a respective component of object framework software for object registration and routing the messages to and from the object. The distributed switching software in each network node and each station is represented as a distribution plane entity which is used for transmitting and controlling the messages between objects in a station or a network node and another distribution plane entity.