Method and apparatus for operations, administration and maintenance of a network messaging layer

A method of checking, in a content routed network including a plurality of routers wherein messages are transported through the network over a message transport layer between publishers and subscribers by matching content of the messages with prior subscriptions associated with said subscribers, that subscriptions issued by a particular subscriber are reachable from other message routers in the network, comprising:

• collecting subscriptions from the particular subscriber;
• creating a message containing content that matches each subscription;
• and
• forwarding said messages from an originating router as trace messages through the content-routed network over said message transport layer along a user data path to target subscribers by content matching with the subscription associated with said target subscribers in accordance with a content-routing protocol to determine whether each subscription of said particular subscriber is reachable from said originating router.

A content router capable of performing connectivity verification in a content routed network wherein messages are transported through the network over a message transport layer between publishers and subscribers by matching content of the messages with prior subscriptions associated with said subscribers, comprising:

• a connectivity and verification manager configured to construct a ping request message containing content matching a subscription associated with a target subscriber attached to a terminating router;
• wherein said connectivity and verification manager is configured to send said ping request message to a publisher attached to the router for injection into a forwarding plane whereby said ping-request message is forwarded through the content-routed network over said message transport layer along a user data path to the target subscriber by content matching with the subscription associated with said target subscriber in accordance with a content-routing protocol;
• and
• wherein said connectivity and verification manager is configure to monitor said message transport layer for a ping reply message returned by the target subscriber attached to the terminating router in order to determine connectivity to the target subscriber based on the receipt of the ping-reply message by a receiving subscriber attached to the router.