Patent ID: 7398321

Claim:
A method of providing failure protection in a network, said method comprising: selecting at least first and second active segments for an active path of a network, the active path to provide data from a source node to a destination node of the active path, said active path comprising a plurality of nodes, including the source node, the destination node and one or more nodes disposed therebetween, wherein the first active segment is from a first node to a second node of the active path, and the second active segment is from a third node to a fourth node of the active path, the third node being different than the second node, and wherein the first and second active segments at least partially overlap and less than fully overlap; and selecting at least first and second backup segments for the at least first and second active segments, respectively, wherein the first backup segment and the second backup segment share a same bandwidth, and the first backup segment starts at the first node and ends at the second node, and the second backup segment starts at the third node and ends at the fourth node, wherein the first and second backup segments are otherwise node-disjoint with the first and second active segments, respectively, and wherein the selection of the first and second active segments and the selection of the first and second backup segments are performed by a computer specially programmed to perform the selecting of the first and second active segments and the selecting of the first and second backup segments.