Patent ID: 7257120

Claim:
In an optical network, a method for providing differentiated services for a plurality of WDM layer applications, comprising: transmitting user traffic over a range of wavelengths along a communication path in an optical network; connecting network elements along the communication path via an optical supervisory channel, the supervisory channel being transmitted at a wavelength different than the range of wavelengths being used to transmit the user traffic; transmitting control data for supporting a class of service (CoS) over the supervisory channel to each respective network elements, wherein said control data comprises protocol data units (PDU) transported over said supervisory network; and executing a WDM layer application at each of the network elements to operate the network element according to the control data, wherein said step of transmitting control data comprises: at a first network element, generating an add supervisory PDU comprising CoS information destined to said WDM layer application operating at a second network element; providing said add supervisory PDU with an identification tag; forwarding said add supervisory PDU to an appropriate output port queue; queuing said add supervisory PDU according to said CoS information; and routing a plurality of said add supervisory PDU from different queues over said supervisory network according to said CoS.