Patent ID: 7697445

Claim:
A system for autonomous data path verification in a digital data switching system, comprising: a source port module configured to receive signals from and transmit signals to customer facility interfaces, the signals being selected from SONET and SDH signals and having transport overhead bytes, the source port module being configured to strip and reuse at least a portion of the transport overhead bytes from the received signals by inserting data path verification data therefor; a destination module configured to communicate with the source port module, the destination module being configured to perform autonomous data path verification between the source port module and the destination module by examining the reused transport overhead bytes of the signals received from the source port module; a mapping interface module in communication with the source port module and the destination module, the mapping interface module configured to time-space switch the payload and overhead of the signals at a substrate level; and wherein the destination module is further configured to modify the data path verification data and transmit the modified data path verification data to the source port module, and wherein the source port module is further configured to perform autonomous data path verification by examining the modified data path verification data received from the destination module.