Patent ID: 8638816

Claim:
A method, comprising: provisioning a frame into one or more containers, wherein each container is configured to carry data; receiving a set of M service data streams, wherein each of the set of M service data streams is received from a respective service, and each of the set of M service data streams is in a respective native data format of the respective service; mapping service data of the set of M service data streams into a set of M containers of the one or more containers, wherein the mapping forms a payload of the frame, each of the set of M containers corresponds to the respective service, and each of the set of M containers carry data of the respective service in the respective native data format; generating one or more bytes of path overhead (POH), section overhead (SOH), and line overhead (LOH) for a first service data stream of the set of M service data streams; storing a first intermediate state of M intermediate states, wherein the first intermediate state corresponds to the first service data stream, and the first intermediate state comprises data bits of the one or more bytes of POH, SOH, and LOH; and transmitting the frame into a communication network.