Control of optical connections in an optical network

A system for lightpath restoration in a reconfigurable optical network comprising:

• a plurality of optical light cross-connects, each optical light cross connect having at least one optical resource;
• means for controlling said optical resources of the reconfigurable optical network via an IP layer;
• means for reserving restoration capacity using IP mechanisms;
• means for detecting a transmission failure in said reconfigurable optical network;
• means for handling an exception as a result of a transmission failure;
• and
• means for allocating said restoration capacity using at least in part IP mechanisms, said means for allocating comprising
• means for retrieving a pre-calculated restoration route;
• means for generating a restoration message along said pre-calculated restoration route to configure OLXCs along said pre-calculated restoration route;
• means for forwarding said restoration message to each OLXC along said precalculated restoration route;
• and
• means for rerouting transmissions onto said pre-calculated restoration route.