Patent ID: 8477769

Claim:
A system comprising: one or more active/working circuit groups to transfer information through a protection domain, the protection domain defined by a plurality of network devices and a plurality of links connecting the plurality of network devices between a start point and an end point; a primary protection circuit through the protection domain, the primary protection circuit being disjoint from the one or more active/working circuit groups and providing shared protection for the one or more active/working circuit groups, the primary protection circuit being comprised of an individual protection circuit, a capacity of the primary protection circuit being dynamically adjusted when a protection bandwidth ratio is outside a predetermined threshold, and the protection bandwidth ratio being based on a total bandwidth of the one or more active/working circuit groups divided by a total available protection bandwidth of the primary protection circuit; a secondary protection circuit, the secondary protection circuit providing shared protection for the one or more active/working circuit groups, and the secondary protection circuit being used to restore one or more faults when a worst case protection bandwidth exceeds a particular threshold associated with the capacity of the primary protection circuit; and a processor to: receive a request to remove one of the primary protection circuit or the secondary protection circuit; designate one of the primary protection circuit or the secondary protection circuit for removal based on a comparison of respective bandwidths of the primary protection circuit and the secondary protection circuit; re-route each path associated with the designated one of the primary protection circuit or the secondary protection circuit, the processor, when re-routing each path, being to one of: re-route each path to the one of primary protection circuit or the secondary protection circuit that is not designated for removal, or re-route each path to another secondary protection circuit, the other secondary protection circuit being different than the secondary protection circuit; and update the protection bandwidth ratio for each of the one or more active/working circuit groups.