Patent ID: 7457277

Claim:
An integrated optical network comprising: a control plane connecting one or more optical signal switches and one or more electrical signal switches, the control plane to transmit control packets; a forwarding plane connecting the optical signal switches and the electrical signal switches, the forwarding plane to transmit data traffic packets; and a router communicatively connected with the control plane and the forwarding plane, wherein the router to: receive a packet, determine a packet type and a destination domain type for the packet, wherein determining the packet type comprises reading an Internet Protocol (“IP”) header of the packet to determine a transport layer protocol type for the packet, reading a transport layer header to determine port information for the packet, and determining the packet type based, at least in part, on the transport layer protocol type and the port information, wherein the packet type comprises one of a data traffic packet type or a control packet type, select either the forwarding plane or the control plane to transmit the packet based on the packet type, select either an optical signal switch or an electrical signal switch to receive the packet based on the destination domain type; and send the packet to a destination domain based on the selections.