Patent ID: 7688732

Claim:
A method of managing traffic in an optical network, comprising: tagging a first portion of traffic in ingress to at least one node of said network as high priority traffic and a second portion of traffic in ingress to said at least one node as low priority traffic; configuring at least a portion of said network so that a first portion of lightpaths exiting from said at least one node is classified as high priority lightpaths and adapted to carry said high priority traffic and a second portion of lightpaths exiting from said at least one node is classified as low priority lightpaths and adapted to carry said low priority traffic; detecting a burst of said high priority traffic; after said step of detecting said burst, acting on at least a portion of said low priority traffic, so as to deplete at least one interface of said at least one node, connected to at least one of said low priority lightpaths; tearing down said at least one low priority lightpath connected to said at least one depleted node interface; setting up at least one new temporary high priority lightpath starting from said at least one depleted node interface; and forwarding a portion of said high priority traffic to said at least one depleted node interface, and, thereby, to said new temporary high priority lightpath.