Patent ID: 8565116

Claim:
A communication apparatus, comprising: a protocol processing unit configured to send and receive link information on a link in a network having a redundant configuration according to a protocol, to build topology information of the network from the link information, and to set up a path in the network based on the topology information; wherein the protocol processing unit includes a link information advertising unit configured to advertise the link information including information used to set up the path, said information used to set up the path including reservable bandwidth information for each of a plurality of line types of lines provided by the link with respect to each of a plurality of protection types of the link; a topology information storing unit configured to store the topology information; and a link information receiving unit configured to receive the link information and to store the received link information in the topology information storing unit, wherein said information used to set up the path further includes channel availability information indicating availability with respect to each of a plurality of channels of the lines, wherein the protocol is a routing protocol for GMPLS; the link information advertising unit is configured to use a frame defined in the routing protocol and containing sub-frames to advertise the link information; and the link information advertising unit is configured to use a protection type sub-frame to advertise each of the protection types of the link, a reservable bandwidth sub-frame to advertise the reservable bandwidth information for each of the line types with respect to each of the protection types of the link, and an administrative group sub-frame to advertise the channel availability information, wherein the link information advertising unit is configured to place mandatory sub-frames required by the routing protocol in the frame, to place the sub-frames used to advertise the protection types, the reservable bandwidth information for each of the line types with respect to each of the protection types of the link, and the channel availability information after the mandatory sub-frames, and to place the administrative group sub-frame, the protection type sub-frame, and the reservable bandwidth sub-frame that are the same as those included in the mandatory sub-frames again after the sub-frames used for the advertisement.