Recovery method for an optical network

Abstract

A system and method of routing communication signals is provided. A first technique uses a packet switched device that operates using Internet Protocol, the packet switched device determines one or more commands based on a routing request to establish, maintain, restore or breakdown one or more communication paths and a circuit switched device that provides physical switching between a plurality of ports based on the one or more commands from the packet switched device. A second technique for expediting error condition information is also provided. As various error conditions are recognized, information relating to the error conditions is provided directly to the packet switched device to enable the packet switched device to restore communications with minimal delay.

What is claimed is:  
     
         1 . A method for restoring communications, comprising the steps of: 
 attempting to restore communications within a communications node;    attempting to restore communications by only communicating with at least one other communication node forwarding significant amounts of data; and    attempting to restore communications by communicating with an entire network.    
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the step of attempting to restore communications by only communicating with communications nodes forwarding significant amounts of data is limited to communicating with those communications nodes impacted by the communications to be restored.  
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the communications node uses at least on of a routing table, at least one cross connect mapping and at least one logical connection between communications nodes to attempt to restore communications.  
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the communications node restores communications using at least one of managing peer interfaces, managing external interfaces, managing internal resources, and managing faults at the network edge.  
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the communications node uses at least one of internal or external gateway protocols, Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), border gateway protocol and Intermediate Systems-Intermediate Systems (IS-IS) signals to discover a network topology.  
     
     
         6 . A network using the method of  claim 1 .  
     
     
         7 . The method of  claim 1 , wherein the communications node communicates with other communications nodes using at least one of signaling via IP packets, Resource Reservation Protocol (RSVP) and Constraint Based Routing-Label Distribution Protocol (CR-LDP).