Inventors:
Anthony C. K. Kam - Arlington MA, US
Raymond Y. Xie - Westford MA, US
Tao Yang - Acton MA, US
Naimish Patel - Boston MA, US
Assignee:
Sycamore Networks, Inc. - Chelmsford MA
International Classification:
H04J 1/16
US Classification:
370216, 370218, 370256, 370403, 370258, 370389
Abstract:
Each span of a communication network, such as a BLSR ring, is assigned a unique span ID. When a node of the network detects a failure in a network span, the node exchanges commands, according to an automatic protection switching (APS) protocol, that request other nodes of the network to switch network traffic from a working span to a protect span. The commands specify the working span by its span ID, without necessarily specifying a source node ID or a destination node ID for the commands. The span ID occupies fewer bits in the commands than bits representing a combination of the source node ID and the destination node ID. Alternatively, the commands specify a destination node ID without a span ID or a source node ID, or the commands specify a source node ID without a span ID or a destination node ID.