Composite transport functions

A network comprising:

• an ingress layer processor (LP) configured to distribute a plurality of component communications to a plurality of component connections;
• a composite connection coupled to the ingress LP and comprising a plurality of the component connections and a plurality of intermediate nodes, wherein the composite connection is configured to transport the component communications using the component connections and the intermediate nodes;
• an egress LP coupled to the composite connection and configured to receive the component communications from the component connections;
• and
• a management entity in communication with the ingress LP, the egress LP, the intermediate nodes, or combinations thereof, wherein the management entity is not one of the intermediate nodes, and
• wherein upon detection of a fault in one of the component connections the ingress LP transmits an alarm indication signal (AIS) to a first intermediate node when the ingress LP is unable to reroute one of the component communications,
• wherein upon detection of the fault in the component connection caused by one or more affected intermediate nodes, the ingress LP is configured to reroute at least some of the affected component communications over a bypass connection that is not part of the composite connection, and wherein no AISs are propagated to the client traffic endpoints by the affected intermediate nodes, and
• wherein the ingress LP is further configured to propagate an AIS to corresponding client traffic end points when at least some of the affected component communication's data packets are dropped as a result of the fault in the component connection.

A network comprising:

• a composite link that is a logical link composed of a set of parallel point-to-point component links each of which share the same endpoints;
• a component link that is a point-to-point physical or logical link that preserves ordering in the steady state;
• a flow that is a sequence of packets that must be transferred on one component link to preserve the flow packet sequence;
• and
• a flow identification comprising a label stack and other information that uniquely identifies a flow, wherein other information in the flow identification may include an Internet Protocol (IP) pseudo-wire (PW) control word or an Ethernet MAC address, wherein the flow identification is used to locally select a component link, or a path through the network toward the destination, and
• at least one component configured to:
• provide a mechanism to select a component link for a flow across a pair of nodes connected by composite links in such a way as to automatically distribute the load over the nodes connected by composite links while meeting all other mandatory requirements;
• ensure that all possible restoration operations happen within a timeframe needed;
• measure traffic on a labeled traffic flow and dynamically select the component link on which to place this flow in order to balance the load so that no component link in the composite link between a pair of nodes is overloaded;
• provide a means that communicates whether the flows within a path is split across multiple component links;
• provide a means to indicate the flow identification fields which is used along the path;
• transmit an alarm to a downstream component when the component link within the composite link fails and the flow is dropped;
• disable an alarm indication signal (AIS) insertion from the downstream component for each affected component link, wherein the AIS insertion indicates a path failure along the affected component links;
• and
• provide a means local to a node that automatically distributes flows across the component links in the composite link such that all criteria for transporting packets over the composite connection are met.