Patent ID: 8402121

Claim:
A method of reconfiguring a network having a transport plane for carrying subscriber traffic flows within end-to-end connections, a control plane for managing at least a portion of resources of the transport plane allocated to the connections, and a management plane implementing management functions for the control plane and any resources of the transport plane that are not managed by the control plane, the method comprising: installing an updated control plane name space for at least one target node of the network; and for each connection traversing the at least one target node: performing a control plane to management plane migration for removing connection state in the control plane associated with the connection, so as to transfer ownership of the connection from the control plane to the management plane; and performing a management plane to control plane migration for installing new connection state in the control plane associated with the connection, so as to transfer ownership of the connection from the management plane to the control plane, the new connection state being defined using the updated control plane name space.