Sycamore Networks, Inc.

Joseph Zahavi

William R Sears

Naimish Patel

In a network having a trace capability, a method to track the connectivity of the network uses the trace messages. A network manager creates a list of ports in the network and uses that list to track the connectivity. For each port, the manager first checks whether there is a current connection and if it finds one, records the connection. For the unconnected ports, the manager enables the transmission of a trace message that identifies the transmitting port. When a trace detected message is received from a port, the network manager updates the list of ports with the connection just reported and disables the trace message that was detected. A port sending a trace message that is not detected is marked as not connected in the list. The method is useful in high bandwidth circuit-based networks, such as optical networks, composed of links of many types and utilizing differing protocols.

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Westford, MA, United States of America

Joseph Zahavi