EP1152631A2 Expired / Lapsed EP ⏱️ 0.0 years remaining

Supervisory control plane over wavelenght routed networks

Assignee: Nortel Networks Ltd

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Filing: 2001-04-25

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Granted: —

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Expires: 2021-04-25

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Abstract

Abstract A dedicated IP-based wavelength routing/signaling control plane for optically switched network, is provided. The IP-based control plane is an out-band routing/signaling mechanism and does not require optical-electrical-optical (OEO) conversion. The control plane can accommodate the various network topologies of the data plane and if one of the supervisory, or control channel fails, the IP-based control plane can re-route the traffic to destination. Using non-broadcasting addressable protocols the control plane selects a different path to re-direct the control information without declaring the whole communications trail down and without affecting the client traffic over the data path.

Inventors

👤 Guo Qiang Q. Wang
👤 Yanhe Fan

Bibliographic Details

Application Number —

Jurisdiction EP

Data Source google_patents

Last Synchronized 2026-10-24 13:35

CPC Classifications

H; H04; H04Q; H04Q11/00; H04Q11/0001; H04Q11/0062; H04Q11/0066; H04Q11/0071; H04Q2011/0079; H04Q2011/0088

Claims Analysis

Total Claims: 5

Claim 1

Independent Claim 73 words

A method for out-band routing of control messages over all-optical networks, comprising the steps of: establishing communications paths for customer traffic in a data plane, said communications paths being associated with dedicated control channels for transmitting control messages; grouping said dedicated control channels so as to form a supervisory control plane which is logically separated from said data plane; and re-routing said control messages to an alternative control channel using non-broadcasting addressable protocols.

Claim 2

Dependent Claim 24 words

A method according to claim 1 wherein said step of forming said control plane includes combining Layer-2 framing protocols with a dedicated control channel.

Claim 3

Dependent Claim 53 words

A method according to claim 1 or claim 2 wherein said non-broadcasting addressable protocols comprising a wavelength routing protocol (WRP) for monitoring the status of wavelengths available on each link of said communications paths, and a wavelength distribution protocol (WDP) performing connections management according to combinations of destination addressed and service type information.

Claim 4

Dependent Claim 28 words

A method according to claim 3 wherein said wavelength routing protocol (WRP) is activated each time a change occurs in the network topology and in the bandwidth availability.

Claim 5

Dependent Claim 65 words

An optical switch for performing out-band routing of control messages over all-optical networks: means for establishing communications paths in a payload data plane network; means for forming a supervisory control plane network by combining a Layer-2 framing protocol processing hardware with each dense division wavelength multiplexing (DWDM) link card: and means for re-routing said control messages to an alternate control channel using non-broadcasting addressable protocols.

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