Dynegy's national long-haul optical mesh network utilizing intelligent optical switches

Summary form only given. Wavelength Division Multiplexed (WDM) networks that route optical connections using intelligent Optical Crossconnects (OXCs) are firmly established as the core constituent of next generation networks. With connection rates reaching tens of Gb/s, preventing and repairing failures are increasingly becoming an integral part of the network design process. In end-to-end dedicated (1+1) mesh protection, the ingress and egress OXCs of the failed connection attempt to restore the signal on a predefined backup path that is disjoint from the primary path. Path diversity guarantees that primary and backup paths will not simultaneously succumb to the same failure. Diversity of routes in an optical network is defined using the notion of Shared Risk Groups, sets of optical channels that have the same risk of failure.