Patent ID: 6947376

Claim:
A communication network that includes nodes N p , p=1, 2, 3 . . . and link bundles L pq , q=1, 2, 3 . . . that interconnect nodes p and q, where said link bundles are carried over physical physical spans of transmission facilities, the improvement comprising: a neighborhood M p associated with each node N p , wherein neighborhood M p may be different in size from neighborhood M p , where size of a neighborhood designates number of hops included in the neighborhood; and node N p comprises a processing module that receives information about spare capacity in neighborhood M p and maintains a set of re-route plans that affect neighborhood M p , or pointers to such plans wherein said processing module, upon receiving information of a failure condition of a type for which node N p is a backup node for purposes of re-routing, triggers execution of a pre-planned re-routing plan to bypass said failure condition when, in response to a query of a node N q that is a control node for said failure condition, node N p determines that node N q will not trigger said execution of said pre-planned re-routing plan.