Patent ID: 7023804

Claim:
A method of processing a stream of data packets in a packet switch to facilitate monitoring of said stream, said packet switch having one or more interface devices for servicing an input point, a first output point and a second output point of the switch, said method comprising the steps of: (a) configuring the device servicing the input point to attach overhead associated with a point-to-point connection to packets received at the input point in order to route the packets to the first output point; (b) configuring the device servicing the first output point to receive and process the packets having the point-to-point overhead attached thereto; (c) configuring the device servicing the second output point to receive and process packets having overhead attached thereto which is associated with a point-to-multipoint connection for routing packets from the input point to the first output point and from the input point to the second output point; (d) configuring the device servicing the first output point to additionally receive and process packets having the point-to-multipoint overhead attached thereto, wherein the configuration of the device servicing the first output point that results from step (b) remains unchanged; and (e) only after step (d) is completed, configuring the device servicing the input point to attach the point-to-multipoint overhead to packets received at the input point instead of attaching said overhead associated with said point-to-point connection; thereby converting a point-to-point packet flow into a point-to-multipoint packet flow and enabling monitoring of data packets arriving at the second output point without disrupting the point-to-point packet flow.