Patent ID: 7428212

Claim:
A method for restoring a virtual path, the method comprising: detecting a failure in said virtual path by receiving a failure message; acknowledging said failure message; releasing a resource of said virtual path; changing a state of a portion of said virtual path to down; identifying a class of service, among a plurality of classes of service, of said virtual path; identifying an alternate physical path, wherein said virtual path is over a physical path in an optical network, said optical network comprising a plurality of nodes, said physical path comprises a first subset of nodes of said nodes, and said alternate physical path comprises a second subset of nodes of said nodes and is between a first node and a second node of said first subset of nodes, wherein said second node receives said failure message; and determining whether said alternate physical path is able to support said virtual path by determining whether each node of said second subset of nodes has sufficient resources necessary to support said class of service of said virtual path.