Patent ID: 7773539

Claim:
An apparatus comprising: a first optical interface that is configured to be optically coupled to an optical control plane of an optical network operations center (NOC) in an optical network having an optical domain managed by the NOC, wherein the first optical interface resides in the optical domain and is controlled by the optical NOC; a second optical interface that is configured to be optically coupled to a Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical interface of an Internet Protocol (IP) network device that resides in an IP domain of an IP network, wherein the IP network device is normally managed by an IP NOC via an IP control plane and is configured to convert IP traffic destined for the optical domain into optical traffic, and to convert optical traffic destined for the IP domain into IP traffic via optical signals that cross an IP-optical boundary that separates control functions of the IP domain and control functions of the optical domain; a logical interface coupled to the optical NOC, wherein the logical interface is configured to act as a proxy in the optical domain for the WDM optical interface of the IP network device by interfacing signals across the IP-optical boundary from the optical domain into the IP domain and to translate a request from the optical NOC comprising the configuration parameters to configure the WDM optical interface of the IP network device via the optical domain; and a connection configured to send the configuration parameters to the IP network device from the optical NOC to provision the WDM optical interface for communication with the second optical interface according to the configuration parameters.