Nortel Networks Corporation

Dino B Fatica

Kim Bryon Roberts

David Charles Steele

James R Mattson

LeRoy Anthony Pick

Jose K Kokkat

Timothy P Munro

Nicolas Benvenuti

Pierre Coll

A network control entity that has an input for receiving data indicative of an event associated with a first member of a virtual concatenation group transported through the network. The network control entity also has a processing entity for computing a new route for a second member of the virtual concatenation group, the computing being triggered by the event.

Method and apparatus for routing a virtual concatenation group in a network

A network node includes a system enabling high-speed protection switching of traffic between respectively associated working and protection channels of a communications network. The node comprises a multi-stage switch fabric, an interface, and a toggle. The multi-stage switch fabric has a first stage including a respective plurality of stage-switch elements. The interface is operatively coupled to a set of one or more stage-switch elements, and is adapted to aggregate the working and protection channels of the communications network on a selected one of the set of stage-switch elements. Finally, the toggle is adapted to control the selected stage-switch element to map traffic between a middle stage of the switch fabric and a selected one of the working and protection channels.

Protection switching in a multi-stage switch fabric

A data communication apparatus having a plurality of working ports for exchanging data traffic with network elements and a plurality of protection ports. The data communication apparatus further includes at least one protection switching functional element operative to perform a plurality of protection switching processes in parallel for switching data traffic from failed working ports to respective protection ports.

Data communication apparatus with distributed traffic protection switching system

An automated method of detecting, and provisioning connections between interconnected nodes in a consolidated network element involves sending messages between the nodes. The messages are inserted into data frames sent from respective transmit ports through inter-node links, to respective receive ports. The messages contain information used to provision the receive ports at which they are received, and information for identifying equipment that generated, transmitted, and conveyed the message, respectively, so that the connectivity of the interconnected nodes can be verified.

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Nepean, Canada

Dino B Fatica