Quality of service (QoS) based supervisory network for optical transport systems

In an optical network, a method for providing differentiated services for a plurality of WDM layer applications, comprising:

• transmitting user traffic over a range of wavelengths along a communication path in an optical network;
• connecting network elements along the communication path via an optical supervisory channel, the supervisory channel being transmitted at a wavelength different than the range of wavelengths being used to transmit the user traffic;
• transmitting control data for supporting a class of service (CoS) over the supervisory channel to each respective network elements, wherein said control data comprises protocol data units (PDU) transported over said supervisory network;
• and
• executing a WDM layer application at each of the network elements to operate the network element according to the control data, wherein said step of transmitting control data comprises:
• at a first network element,
• receiving a drop supervisory PDU comprising CoS information;
• determining from an identification tag that said drop supervisory PDU is destined to said first network element;
• extracting said CoS information from said drop supervisory PDU;
• and
• executing said WDM layer application according to said CoS information.

In an optical network, a method for providing differentiated services for a plurality of WDM layer applications, comprising:

• transmitting user traffic over a range of wavelengths along a communication path in an optical network;
• connecting network elements along the communication path via an optical supervisory channel, the supervisory channel being transmitted at a wavelength different than the range of wavelengths being used to transmit the user traffic;
• transmitting control data for supporting a class of service (CoS) over the supervisory channel to each respective network elements, wherein said control data comprises protocol data units (PDU) transported over said supervisory network;
• and
• executing a WDM layer application at each of the network elements to operate the network element according to the control data, wherein said step of transmitting control data comprises
• at a first network element,
• receiving a continue supervisory PDU comprising CoS information;
• determining from an identification tag that said supervisory PDU is destined to a second network element of said communication path;
• and
• transmitting said supervisory PDU over said supervisory network.