Patent ID: 8787170

Claim:
A method for existential provisioning of flexible ports in a network using distributed control, comprising: defining a port type and a destination reference on a flexible port module through detecting an incoming signal; provisioning a first port responsive to the port type for an output of the first port; provisioning a path at a physical layer across the network to a second port utilizing signaling over a control plane separate from a traffic connection, wherein the provisioned path comprises configuring a physical path over a physical medium, wherein the provisioning comprises provisioning ports on intermediate network elements to provide the path with the signaling and the control plane, and wherein the second port is provisioned in terms of rate and format responsive to the provisioning of the first port in terms of rate and format communicated through the signaling over the control plane without using a network management system to provision the first port or the second port at a physical layer and the physical path; and connecting the first and second ports through the path; wherein the first port comprises a flexible, existential port capable of a plurality of protocols based upon software provisioning and based upon automatic detection of an incoming bit rate and protocol; wherein the destination reference comprises one or more of an End System Address (ESA), a Transport Network Assigned (TNA) address, or a Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) Uniform Resource Identifier (URI), and wherein the second port is automatically configured responsive to the destination reference; and wherein the signaling comprises utilizing type-length-value (TLV) fields in messages on the control plane to cause the second port to be provisioned in terms of rate and format responsive to the provisioning of the first port in lieu of the network management system.