Patent ID: 8150018

Claim:
A method, comprising: detecting, at a network device, an addition of a first gateway to a packet network; determining whether the first gateway comprises an access gateway or a core gateway; if the first gateway comprises a core gateway: establishing a first connection between the first gateway and a router; and generating an object representing the first gateway; and if the first gateway comprises an access gateway: identifying a second gateway; and establishing a second connection between the first gateway and the second gateway; associating a first endpoint of the first gateway with one or more of the connections; associating a second endpoint of the second gateway with one or more of the connections; and associating the first and second endpoints with one or more of the connections by generating a channel identifier, the first gateway operable to map the channel identifier to a first Digital Signal level 0 (DS0) connection at the first gateway, and the second gateway operable to map the channel identifier to a second DS0 connection at the second gateway.