Patent ID: 7457540

Claim:
A method for transmitting traffic in an optical network, the optical network operable to carry optical traffic in a plurality of multiplexed wavelengths between a plurality of nodes, the method comprising: establishing at least one light-trail in the optical network between a subset of the plurality of nodes, wherein the light-trail couples the subset of nodes and is associated with one of the plurality of wavelengths, wherein establishing the light-trail comprises transmitting one or more control messages on an out-of-band control channel that is associated with a different wavelength than the wavelength associated with the light-trail; and at one or more of the subset of nodes: receiving traffic from one or more client devices of the node to be communicated over the light-trail to a destination node; determining one or more service types associated with the received traffic; determining traffic shaping information for each service type based on information relating to the arrival of traffic associated with the service type at the node, the traffic shaping information operable to indicate to the destination node the rate at which the traffic associated with each service type should be communicated from the destination node to one or more client devices of the destination node, wherein the traffic shaping information comprises at least one of (i) an average arrival rate at the node of traffic associated with each service type and (ii) an average latency of traffic associated with each service type; transmitting the determined traffic shaping information for each service type to the destination node; and transmitting the traffic over the light-trail to the destination node during a time period at which the node has been allocated use of the light-trail.