Patent ID: 7580637

Claim:
A pluggable optical transceiver defined by a multi-source agreement, the pluggable optical transceiver comprising integrated circuitry configured to frame a signal with overhead for operations, administration, maintenance, & provisioning (OAM&P) functions necessary for optical transport networks (OTN) applications and to process OAM&P data within the pluggable optical transceiver, wherein the integrated circuitry is configured to frame the signal with a G.709 frame and the overhead comprises G.709 management data; and a communication mechanism compliant to the multi-source agreement, wherein the communication mechanism is adapted to communicate the processed OAM&P data to a host system; wherein the pluggable optical transceiver with the integrated circuitry and the communication mechanism preserves the specifications for the multi-source agreement defining the pluggable optical transceiver; wherein a subset of the G.709 management data is accessible and terminated on the pluggable optical transceiver; wherein the subset is selected responsive to limitations in the communication mechanism of the multi-source agreement; and wherein the G.709 management data is communicated through mechanisms fully supported by the multi-source agreement with only software re-design in the host system.