Patent ID: 8687956

Claim:
An Optical Cross Connect (OXC) for an optical network comprising: a colorless, steerable multiplexer/demultiplexer coupled to a Reconfigurable Optical Add Drop Multiplexer (ROADM) core, the ROADM core comprising optical components and a ROADM core controller wherein the ROADM core controller is configured to perform optical wavelength cross connection, disconnection and wavelength adding/dropping operations using the optical components; a message processor coupled to the ROADM core controller wherein the message processor is configured to receive, process and deliver control messages from the network; a ROADM central controller coupled to the message processor wherein the ROADM central controller is configured to receive the control messages and execute network topology collection, service path selection and ROADM core operation control; a Local Restoration Controller (LRC) coupled to the message processor wherein the LRC is configured to receive and execute restoration X-connect messages sent by another LRC; a database/memory coupled to the ROADM central controller and the LRC wherein the database/memory is configured to store network resources and service path, restoration path, link wavelength and standby wavelength data; a plurality of ROADM core network ports coupled to the ROADM core wherein the network ports couple to other ROADMs coupled to the optical network; and a plurality of add/drop ports coupled to the colorless, steerable multiplexer/demultiplexer wherein the add/drop ports couple to a set of regenerators present on the network that form a pool of regenerators wherein due to the multiplexer/demultiplexer being colorless and steerable, any regenerator can be configured to all network wavelengths over all network links, and the pool of regenerators is shared by multiple restoration paths which thereby reduce the number of regenerators required for a service path restoration; the LRC being further configured to, upon receipt of a X-connect message from another LRC, issue a cross-connect command to the ROADM core controller for operating the optical components to cross connect two selected restoration wavelength channels, and forward the X-connect message to a next OXC location without confirmation that the cross connect command is successful; the ROADM core controller being configured to, in the event of the cross connect command being unsuccessful, cause the message processor to send a back-off message in both directions on a restoration path to remove the restoration path and release occupied restoration resources.