System and method for identifying a target signal in an optical transport network frame structure

A network element comprising:

• a memory having embodied thereon one or more entries, each entry associated with a signal and including:
• an Access Identifier (AID) for the signal;
• at least one attribute for the signal, the at least one attribute defining:
• an Optical Transport Network (OTN) multiplexing structure associated with the target signal;
• and
• one or more attributes associated with one or more of a higher order or intermediate higher order optical data unit entity for a supporting entity of a lower order optical data unit associated with the target signal;
• and
• a processor communicatively coupled to the memory and configured to identify a target signal from the entries based on the AID and the at least one attribute associated with the target signal.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing logic for configuring admission control of service instances in a network element, the logic configured when executed by a processor to:

• store an Access Identifier (AID) for the target signal;
• store at least one attribute for the target signal, the at least one attribute defining:
• an Optical Transport Network (OTN) multiplexing structure associated with the target signal;
• and
• one or more attributes associated with one of a higher order or an intermediate higher order optical data unit entity for a supporting entity of a lower order optical data unit associated with the target signal;
• and
• identify the target signal based on the stored AID and the at least one stored attribute.