Patent ID: 7596083

Claim:
A method for recovering at least one circuit of a network element in a communications network, the method comprising: determining a recovery interval in response to a failure occurring in the network element, wherein the determining a recovery interval includes determining a time of the failure of the network element, determining a time of a most recent back-up of the network element prior to the failure of the network element, and identifying the recovery interval as the time period between the time of the most recent back-up of the network element prior to the failure of the network element and the time of failure of the network element; collecting recovery data relating to at least one circuit provisioned in the network element during the recovery interval to support a network service, the recovery data comprising identification data and lost provisioning data that resulted from the at least one circuit provisioned in the network element during the recovery interval; establishing a connection with the network element based on the identification data; and reprovisioning the at least one circuit based on the lost provisioning data.