The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 19, 1999
Filed:
Jun. 07, 1995
Will Russ, Dallas, TX (US);
MCI Communication Corporation, Washington, DC (US);
Abstract
A method and apparatus for restoration of unrestored links and nodal failures utilizes a combination of link and path restoration schemes and most existing message types. This invention begins by using a link restoration scheme, when a fault is detected, to designate a pair of custodial sender and chooser. The conventional link restoration scheme then seeks to find an alternate route to reroute the disrupted traffic. When no alternate route is found after a given time period, a special signal is sent out to notify the network that a path restoration is to take place. The communications path on which the failure occurred is identified. Thereafter, data that was stored in the nodes is retrieved to identify the two ends nodes of the communications path. A restoration process then takes place to find alternate paths to replace the failed communications path. Upon termination of the path restoration scheme after a predetermined time period, the most efficient alternate path is selected to restore the traffic by bypassing the location on the communications path where the failure occurred. Since fault isolation is not required, the present invention can be used to restore traffic due to a nodal failure.