Abstract: Particular embodiments provide an N+0 sharing scheme for networks. The N+0 sharing scheme includes no dedicated spare among a group of active elements. Each active element may provide service to a medium, which may be associated with a medium. When a failure to one of the active elements occurs, at least one of the working active elements takes the workload of the failed active element. The cost of N+0 sharing is a reduced per medium (e.g., service group) capacity during a failure. That is, some service groups may receive less bandwidth from the active element that is used in the sharing scheme to compensate for the failure. However, this may be preferable to service operators compared to the additional cost of including a spare for the group of active elements, or the complete loss of service that occurs when a failure occurs without a failure recovery scheme.

Abstract: Particular embodiments provide an N+0 sharing scheme for networks. The N+0 sharing scheme includes no dedicated spare among a group of active elements. Each active element may provide service to a medium, which may be associated with a medium. When a failure to one of the active elements occurs, at least one of the working active elements takes the workload of the failed active element. The cost of N+0 sharing is a reduced per medium (e.g., service group) capacity during a failure. That is, some service groups may receive less bandwidth from the active element that is used in the sharing scheme to compensate for the failure. However, this may be preferable to service operators compared to the additional cost of including a spare for the group of active elements, or the complete loss of service that occurs when a failure occurs without a failure recovery scheme.

Abstract: A communication system comprising a plurality of sources, a plurality of destinations, and a plurality of switches forming an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network connecting the sources to the destinations. Each switch in the plurality of switches includes a plurality of line cards. The ATM network comprises a plurality of connections where, for each respective connection, one of the plurality of sources is linked to one of the plurality of destinations through the network by linking one or more switches, in the plurality of switches, that is associated with the respective connection. The ATM network further comprises operation administration and maintenance (OAM) cell processing circuitry for detecting a failure in a connection in the network. The failure is localized to the exact line card in a switch associated with the connection that is causing the connection to fail.