Patent ID: 8456984
Filing Date: 2013-06-04
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A network element, comprising: a plurality of ports interfacing to a plurality of other network elements; and a control element coupled to the plurality of ports, wherein the control element is configured to provide dedicated active bandwidth, dedicated protection bandwidth, and shared protection bandwidth at layer one, and to provide virtualized shared protection capacity across a plurality of instance flows over the plurality of ports, wherein the virtualized shared protection capacity comprises the shared protection bandwidth at layer one, and wherein the plurality of instance flows comprise one or more of optical virtual private networks and virtual machines using the virtualized shared protection capacity over the plurality of ports, and wherein the virtualized shared protection capacity comprises its own control plane instance operating at layer one separate from the dedicated active bandwidth and the dedicated protection bandwidth thereby enabling partitioning of the dedicated active bandwidth and the dedicated protection bandwidth into private domains while supporting shared mesh restoration.