Abstract: Method of providing a recovery plan for a connection in a communications network when the connection is disrupted by a failure of a switch, switch or link in the network. In a provisioning phase, a primary plan and recovery plan for a connection to be protected in a communications network are developed. Forwarding information in the form of mapping or forwarding tables is derived from the plans and is distributed to each of the switches in the network. In the event of a failure each switch receives notice of the failure and switches to the recovery plan related to the failure. If and when the failure is repaired or cleared, each switch then switches back to its primary plan. Determining a recovery plan during the provisioning phase is based on the rule that a unit of failure is a switch or group of switches in the network rather than a link, regardless of the actual cause of the failure.

Abstract: A switch (10) for controlling the switching of communication paths in communication equipment, such as telephone networks, is connected to a plurality of controllers (11, 12, 13) via a divider unit (14). The divider unit (14) divides some or all of the resources of the switch (10) into a plurality of switch resource sets, and those switch resource sets are then associated with respective ones of the controllers (11, 12, 13). This has the effect of enabling each switch resource set to act as an independent sub-switch, with each controller (11, 12, 13) then controlling a corresponding sub-switch. This division of the resources of the switch (10) allows different control architectures to be operated simultaneously. This permits different virtual networks to be constituted on the same physical network. Any one of the controllers (11, 12, 13) has access only to the switch resource set or sets allocated to that controller (11, 12, 13).