Method and apparatus for tracing soft permanent virtual circuit connections

摘要

A bulk Soft Permanent Virtual Circuit (SPVC) trace processor is provided. The bulk SPVC trace processor receives notifications of newly established SPVCs and SPVC re-routing instances. The bulk SPVC trace processor submits SPVC connection trace commands to corresponding trace source network nodes, and retrieves trace transit list information therefrom. The aggregate SPVC transport path information derived from trace transit list information is stored and provided to higher network management and service provisioning functions. The bulk SPVC trace processor may also be employed to trace SPVC portions of Hybrid SPVCs. As SPVC connection tracing is necessary subsequent to a failure, load balancing techniques are used to spread SPVC connection tracing over time, network resources, and network partitions to prevent weighting down the network. Network planning and design functions previously built for Permanent Virtual Circuit (PVC) provisioning may be seamlessly upgraded in migrating to (H)SPVC connectivity.