FLEXIBLE SHARED MESH PROTECTION SERVICES FOR INTELLIGENT TDM-BASED OPTICAL TRANSPORT NETWORKS

• US 20090285574A1
• Filed: 05/13/2008
• Published: 11/19/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/13/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Ciena Corporation
• Original Assignee: Verizon Corporate Services Group Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: LIU, Stephen Shyan-Shiang
• Granted Patent: US 8,477,769 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 398/2
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/14 Monitoring arrangements for SDH/SONET rings H04J3/085
• CPC Class Codes: H04J 3/1652 Optical Transport Network [OTN]

Abstract

A system includes 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 network devices between a start point and an end point; and a protection circuit group through the protection domain, the protection circuit group being disjoint from the one or more active/working circuit groups to provide shared protection for the one or more active/working circuit groups, where the protection circuit group is comprised of an individual protection circuit and where a capacity of the protection circuit group is dynamically adjusted based on a capacity of the one or more active/working circuit groups.

Claims

1. 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 network devices between a start point and an end point; and

a protection circuit group through the protection domain, the protection circuit group being disjoint from the one or more active/working circuit groups to provide shared protection for the one or more active/working circuit groups, where the protection circuit group is comprised of an individual protection circuit and where a capacity of the protection circuit group is dynamically adjusted based on a capacity of the one or more active/working circuit groups.

2. The system of claim 1, where the plurality of links supports at least one of:

an external-network network interface (E-NNI);

or

an internal-network network interface (I-NNI).

3. The system of claim 1, where the protection circuit group further comprises a primary protection circuit and a secondary protection circuit, where the secondary protection circuit is disjoint from the primary protection circuit.

4. The system of claim 1, where each of the one or more active/working circuit groups comprises a fully disjoint prototype path.

5. The system of claim 4, further comprising:

a storage device configured to store a protection circuit group table with a registration of each protection circuit in the protection circuit group and a current status of each protection circuit in the protection circuit group.

6. The system of claim 5, where the storage device is further configured to store one or more of:

an available bandwidth for protection in each protection circuit, a total available protection bandwidth of the protection circuit group, or a protection type of each protection circuit.

7. The system of claim 1, further comprising:

a storage device configured to store an active/working circuit group table with a registration of each of the one or more active/working circuit groups and a current status of each of the one or more active/working circuit groups.

8. The system of claim 1, where each active/working circuit group comprises one or more individual circuit segment and where an information stream from the one or more individual circuit segment of the one or more active/working circuit groups is automatically switched to a corresponding individual protection circuit of the protection circuit group in the event of a failure of the one or more individual circuit segments.

9. The system of claim 8, where at least one of the one or more active/working circuit groups and the protection circuit group are of different circuit types.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

creating an active/working circuit group table for each prototype path.

10. A method comprising:

selecting one or more prototype paths over a protection domain within an optical transport network, the prototype paths defining an active/working circuit group;

configuring a primary protection circuit over the protection domain to provide shared protection for the active/working circuit group, where the protection circuit is disjoint from the active/working circuit group;

calculating a protection bandwidth ratio based on the primary protection circuit and the active/working circuit group; and

dynamically adjusting a capacity of the protection circuit based on the protection bandwidth ratio.

11. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

automatically switching an information stream from an individual circuit segment of the active/working circuit group to the primary protection circuit when a failure of the individual circuit segment is detected.

12. The method of claim 10, where the active/working circuit group and the protection circuit are of different types.

13. The method of claim 10, where the amount of prototype paths in the active/working circuit group is adjusted dynamically.

14. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

selecting a secondary protection circuit over the protection domain to provide protection for the primary protection circuit, where the secondary protection circuit is disjoint from the primary protection circuit.

15. The method of claim 10, where the protection domain includes an internal-network network interface (I-NNI) domain or an external-network network interface (E-NNI) domain.

16. The method of claim 10, where the protection domain includes at least one internal-network network interface (I-NNI) domain and at least one external-network network interface (E-NNI) domain.

18. A system comprising an intelligent optical transport network having a flexible shared mesh protection mechanism that allows a number of customer circuits between a particular start point and particular end point to grow in real-time and that dynamically adjusts capacity of a protection circuit based on the number of customer circuits.

19. The system of claim 18, where the intelligent optical transport network automatically switches an information stream to the protection circuit in the event of a failure of a customer circuit.

20. A system comprising:

means for selecting one or more prototype paths over a protection domain within an optical transport network, the prototype paths defining an active/working circuit group;

means for selecting a primary protection circuit over the protection domain to provide shared protection for the active/working circuit group, where the protection circuit is disjoint from the active/working circuit group; and

means for dynamically adjusting a capacity of the protection circuit based on a protection bandwidth ratio of the primary protection circuit and the active/working circuit group.