Patent ID: 7072348

Claim:
A method for reconfiguring the allocation of bandwidth used at transmit and receive nodes of a synchronous optical data communications network wherein data frames are transmitted from said transmit node and received at said receive node and said transmit node comprises a mapper/aggregator, a first bandwidth configuration memory associated with said mapper/aggregator and a transmit framer and said receive node comprises a demapper/deaggregator, a second bandwidth configuration memory associated with said demapper/deaggregator and a receive framer, said method comprising: (a) providing first and second memory banks to said first and second bandwidth configuration memory, whereby said first memory bank of said first bandwidth configuration memory comprises current bandwidth allocation mapping information used by said mapper/aggregator and said first memory bank of said second bandwidth configuration memory comprises current bandwidth allocation mapping information used by said demapper/deaggregator; (b) providing updated bandwidth allocation mapping information to said second memory banks; (c) generating a bandwidth reconfiguration update request; (d) generating a reconfiguration flag at said transmit node in response to said update request; (e) transmitting said reconfiguration flag from said transmit node to said receive node; (f) detecting said reconfiguration flag at said receive node; (g) selecting said updated bandwidth allocation mapping information of said first bandwidth configuration memory's second memory bank for use by said mapper/aggregator in response to said generation of said reconfiguration flag; and, (h) selecting said updated bandwidth allocation mapping information of said second bandwidth configuration memory's second memory bank for use by said demapper/deaggregator in response to said detection of said reconfiguration flag.