Mechanism for automatic protection switching and apparatus utilizing same

Abstract

An automatic protection switching circuit for a SONET network element is realized in part by dedicated hardware logic together with a programmed processor. The dedicated hardware logic includes: a first part adapted to extract fault codes carried in predetermined overhead bytes that are part of an ingress signal; a second part adapted to generate fault codes that represent inter-module communication errors within the node; a third part that determines switch fabric configuration updates based upon the fault codes generated by the first block and the second block; and a fourth part that communicates with switch fabric control logic to carry out the switch fabric configuration updates determined by the third block. The programmed processor automatically configured and controls the first, second, third and fourth parts in accordance with software executing thereon to carry out a selected one of a plurality of automatic protecting switching schemes. The dedicated hardware logic also preferably includes logic that automatically forwards K-bytes in pass-thru mode for BLSR ring protection schemes.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.