Method and system for autonomous link discovery and network management connectivity of remote access devices

A computer network system comprising:

• a first and second network element in a communications network, each network element having communication ports and each network element capable of:
• (i) detecting and validating the communication port connectivity to the other network element via in-band communications initiated by the network elements in the communications network;
• and
• (ii) correlating link related attributes of the communications ports over a control channel to automatically discover validated links between the network elements.

A method for establishing management connectivity in a network comprising:

• sending a signal from a network element over a network path to a management element, the signal containing an initiation message in an overhead section that indicates a unique identifier of the network element;
• processing the initiation message at the management element to make a connectivity determination;
• and
• establishing a connection between the management element and the network element based on the connectivity determination.