Patent ID: 7630302

Claim:
A method for providing a failover circuit for rerouting logical circuit data in a data network, the method comprising: receiving, via a network management system, status information indicating a network circuit failure in the data network, the status information indicating that a switch in the data network is discarding frames or cells, wherein the network management system is separate from switches of the data network used to communicate data through the data network; in response to the status information, identifying, via the network management system, an alternate communication path for routing the data for a logical circuit in the data network, wherein the logical circuit includes a communication path through first and second local access and transport areas and an inter-exchange carrier between the first and second local access and transport areas; selecting, via the network management system, an inactive logical circuit in the data network for communicating the data over the alternate communication path, wherein selecting the inactive logical circuit in the data network for communicating the data over the alternate communication path comprises selecting a currently unused logical connection in the data network for communicating the data, and wherein selecting the currently unused logical connection comprises selecting the currently unused logical connection through a failover network to reroute the data around the inter-exchange carrier; and designating, via the network management system, the inactive logical circuit as a failover circuit for rerouting the data for the logical circuit in the data network.