Patent ID: 7827308

Claim:
A wavekey network comprising: a network controller; a plurality of nodes, each node communicating with said network controller through a management link connecting a selected node, among said plurality of nodes, to said network controller, said each node comprising: a node controller; a respective plurality of access ports; and a respective plurality of inter-nodal interfaces; and a plurality of links, each link connecting inter-nodal interfaces of a respective node pair and supporting optical signals occupying channels of different wavelength bands, said channels comprising: a control channel carrying control signals; and data channels, each data channel carrying data of a respective connection from an access port of a source node to an access port of a destination node, said each data channel further modulated by a respective wavekey of at least one dither tone; said node controller configured to communicate nodal information to said network controller, said nodal information comprising, for each data channel of each link emanating from said each node: an identifier of a connection traversing said each data channel; an identifier of a central wavelength of said each data channel; and an identifier of a current wavekey modulating said central wavelength; and said network controller configured to determine continuity of said connection according to nodal information received from all nodes of said plurality of nodes.