A physical layer network element (104, 210, 306, 400), comprising: a plurality of physical ports (420, 450); a network packet interface comprising a processor, the network packet interface configured to: inspect a network layer adjacency discovery message (120, 220, 320) comprised in a bit stream received by the network packet interface, wherein the bit stream comprises network layer adjacency discovery messages (120, 220, 320) and network layer maintenance messages, and the network layer adjacency discovery message is a broadcast message traversing the physical layer network element and comprises information of adjacent logical nodes (102, 103, 204, 205, 302, 303) operating at a network layer of the OSI model; map at least one of the physical ports (215, 310) to at least one of the adjacent logical nodes (204, 302); transmit or cause transmission of a physical layer adjacency discovery message that indicates physical layer port adjacency information; and transmit or cause transmission of an advertisement message at a physical layer, the advertisement message comprising mapping information of at least one of the physical ports (215, 310) mapped to at least one of the adjacent logical nodes (204, 302), the advertisement message is transmitted to a transport software defined networking, SDN, controller to support creation of physical to logical topology mapping at the SDN controller. a plurality of physical ports (420, 450); a network packet interface comprising a processor, the network packet interface configured to: inspect a network layer adjacency discovery message (120, 220, 320) comprised in a bit stream received by the network packet interface, wherein the bit stream comprises network layer adjacency discovery messages (120, 220, 320) and network layer maintenance messages, and the network layer adjacency discovery message is a broadcast message traversing the physical layer network element and comprises information of adjacent logical nodes (102, 103, 204, 205, 302, 303) operating at a network layer of the OSI model; map at least one of the physical ports (215, 310) to at least one of the adjacent logical nodes (204, 302); transmit or cause transmission of a physical layer adjacency discovery message that indicates physical layer port adjacency information; and transmit or cause transmission of an advertisement message at a physical layer, the advertisement message comprising mapping information of at least one of the physical ports (215, 310) mapped to at least one of the adjacent logical nodes (204, 302), the advertisement message is transmitted to a transport software defined networking, SDN, controller to support creation of physical to logical topology mapping at the SDN controller. inspect a network layer adjacency discovery message (120, 220, 320) comprised in a bit stream received by the network packet interface, wherein the bit stream comprises network layer adjacency discovery messages (120, 220, 320) and network layer maintenance messages, and the network layer adjacency discovery message is a broadcast message traversing the physical layer network element and comprises information of adjacent logical nodes (102, 103, 204, 205, 302, 303) operating at a network layer of the OSI model; map at least one of the physical ports (215, 310) to at least one of the adjacent logical nodes (204, 302); transmit or cause transmission of a physical layer adjacency discovery message that indicates physical layer port adjacency information; and transmit or cause transmission of an advertisement message at a physical layer, the advertisement message comprising mapping information of at least one of the physical ports (215, 310) mapped to at least one of the adjacent logical nodes (204, 302), the advertisement message is transmitted to a transport software defined networking, SDN, controller to support creation of physical to logical topology mapping at the SDN controller.