Patent ID: 7920484

Claim:
A method for removing a lightpath from an optical layer cross-connect configured by a soft state at a node in a reconfigurable optical network, the method comprising: refreshing the soft state in response to receiving, at an Internet Protocol router, refresh message Internet Protocol datagrams at refresh intervals, each refresh interval having a refresh period, wherein refreshing the soft state comprises re-executing a procedure to setup the lightpath; determining whether the soft state has expired after a first time-to-live value, wherein the first time-to-live value is a first multiple of a first refresh period; upon determining that the soft state has expired after the first time-to-live value, removing the lightpath from the optical layer cross-connect; and upon determining that the soft state has not expired after the first time-to-live value, increasing the refresh period to a second refresh period, wherein the second refresh period is greater than the first refresh period.