Patent ID: 7289730

Claim:
An optical path communication network comprising: a source node; a destination node; and transit nodes which are deployed upon a route between the source node and the destination node, wherein: the source node comprises a unit which transmits an optical path setup request; the destination node comprises a unit which reserves a resource which is to be used for setting up an optical path based upon the optical path setup request, and a unit which transmits a resource reservation request; each of the transit nodes comprises a relay unit which, along with relaying towards the destination node the optical path setup request which has been received from a previous hop node, relays towards the source node the resource reservation request which has been received from a next hop node; and the source node and each of the transit nodes further comprise: a notification unit which notifies towards the destination node available resource information which specifies available resources related to its own node which are to be used for setting up an optical path; a pre-assignment unit which pre-assigns the available resources which the notification unit of each of their own nodes has notified, based upon the optical path setup request; an actual reservation unit which actually reserves one of the available resources which have been pre-assigned, based upon the resource reservation request; and a unit which releases the ones among the resources which have been pre-assigned other than the one thereof which is actually reserved.