Nortel Networks Corporation

Claire Greenwood

Mark Brian Carson

Christopher John Brown

Doug Wong

James McKee

John Donaghy

Described are a system and method of communicating status and protection information between cards in a communications system. The system has a plurality of cards connected to a backplane. The plurality of cards includes a tributary card and a cross-connect card for forwarding data traffic between cards in the network element. The backplane has a link that is dedicated to carrying out-of-band signals between the tributary card and the cross-connect card. The tributary card transmits information to the cross-connect card in a first out-of-band signal over the link and the cross-connect card broadcasts the information to the plurality of cards in the network element in a second out-of-band signal.

System and method of communicating status and protection information between cards in a communications system

One aspect of the invention provides an apparatus for implementing a state machine. The apparatus comprises a software component and a hardware component each arranged to implement at least one state and to be responsive to at least one input event to perform one or more functions. The apparatus thus implements a hybrid state machine offering the fast performance of a hardware implementation where required, while offering the flexibility and reduced testing times of a software implementation in respect of any aspect of the state machine not implemented in hardware. The apparatus is particularly suited for use in telecommunications systems and, in one embodiment, is arranged to perform pointer interpretation in accordance with ITU-T standard G.783.

Growing community of inventors

Carryduff, United Kingdom

Claire Greenwood