Patent ID: 8718039

Claim:
A method for optical signaling message processing in a multi-domain optical network, each domain having one or more border nodes, one or more intermediate nodes and a plurality of links connecting the nodes to form a plurality of paths through the domain, the method comprising the steps of: sending a first pass signaling message from a source domain to a destination domain through one or more intermediate domains, the first pass signaling message being sent on a plurality of candidate domain working paths having a unique path topology, wherein sending the first pass signaling message comprises: collecting first pass information identifying available signaling message routing resources for each candidate domain working path at a respective border node in each domain; calculating a domain working path metric representative of the collected first pass information for each candidate domain working path and storing each of the domain working path metrics at the respective border node within each candidate working path in each domain; and determining a domain path key representing the unique topology of each candidate domain working path and storing each of the domain path keys at the respective border node within each candidate working path in each domain; determining at the destination node selected domain working paths and selected border nodes to use in each domain based on the domain working path metrics from each domain; sending a second pass signaling message from the destination node to the source node along the selected domain working paths and selected border nodes using the domain path key for each domain, the second pass signaling message reserving the identified routing resources within the selected domain working paths and selected border nodes; determining at the source node which of the identified routing resources were successfully reserved; selecting at the source node which successful identified routing resources to use; sending a third pass signaling message from the source node to the destination node along the selected domain working paths and selected border nodes identifying the selected routing resources; and establishing an optical working path between the source node and the destination node along the selected domain working paths and selected border nodes using the selected routing resources.