Methods and apparatus are provided for managing protocol information in a PNNI hierarchical network. In a PAR-enabled device (1) of the network PAR PTSEs received by the PAR-enabled device (1) from the network are checked to identify redundant protocol information encapsulated in the PAR PTSEs. Protocol information in received PAR PTSEs is then supplied to a protocol device associated with the PAR-enabled device (1). In some embodiments, protocol information identified as redundant is excluded from the protocol information supplied to the protocol device. In other embodiments, the protocol information supplied to the protocol device is tagged to distinguish redundant protocol information from non-redundant protocol information. This facilitates efficient configuration of the network topology for the protocol in question.