CONNECTION MANAGEMENT SYSTEM AND GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR LARGE-SCALE OPTICAL NETWORKS

摘要

A network management system for large-scale optical networks includes a connection management system that allows a user to manually configure connections among network elements within the network. The user defines general connection attributes and adds network elements to the route or routes, and provisions crossconnects within each network element to establish the route connections. The connection management system includes a validation function to verify the validity of the user-defined connections and a graphical user interface allowing the user to specify a network address for a source node, and a connection between the source node and one or more destination nodes. The network management system program includes databases for storing the selected connection as a pending connection or an active connection upon activation by the user, and a program module establishing a physical connection between the source and destination nodes upon activation by the user.