Patent ID: 8923132

Claim:
A method of establishing a service operations administration and maintenance (OAM) session between an originator and a reflector in a communication network, comprising: continuously monitoring, by the reflector, any test packets transmitted by the originator; transmitting at a time indicated by a first timestamp, by the originator to the reflector, a test packet; receiving at a time indicated by a second timestamp, by the reflector, the test packet; generating, by the reflector, a unique flow identifier which identifies the reflector; assigning, by the reflector, a sequence number to the test packet transmitted by the reflector; transmitting at a time indicated by a third timestamp, by the reflector, the test packet back to the originator; and receiving at a time indicated by a fourth timestamp, by the originator, the test packet, detecting, by the originator, a restart of the reflector, wherein the reflector stores the unique flow identifier at least for the duration of the OAM session.