Patent ID: 8295701

Claim:
A method comprising: connecting a central control server to multiple client control devices each of which resides in a node in a dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) optical network, wherein each client control device is part of an optical control plane associated with the optical network and also part of an electronic network control plane associated with a network management system; determining at least an initial path for routing messages from a source node to a destination node through the DWDM optical network via the electronic network control plane of the network management system; providing the determined initial path route from the electronic network control plane to the central control server; obtaining data for path route analysis at the central control server from each of the client control devices, wherein the obtained data comprises optical performance information about each client control device within the DWDM optical network accessible for use by the central control server without providing the obtained data to the electronic network control plane; at the central control server, determining optical feasibility of at least one path route from a source node to a destination node from optical parametric information based on the data obtained from multiple client control devices and without real-time communication between the central control server and the multiple client control devices during said determining of the optical feasibility; storing data pertaining to optical feasibility determined for the at least one path route; and in response to a determination by the central control server that the initial determined path route from the source node to the destination node is not optically feasible, providing instructions from the central control server to the network management system to select a re-routed path from the source node to the destination node.