Abstract: In accordance with at least one embodiment of the disclosures made herein, monitoring a failure prediction parameter of at least one of the plurality of protected system elements is performed. correlating a present state of the failure prediction parameter to a failure prediction criterion is performed, thus identifying a failure predicted one of a plurality of protected system elements when a failure prediction condition is met. In response to determining protection switching priority as applying to the failure predicted one or the failure predicted one being the only failure predicted system element, downloading service information of the failure predicted one to the protection system element is performed. Failure of the failure predicted one is confirmed. Switching communication service supported by the failure predicted one of the protected system elements for being supported by to the protection system element is performed.

Abstract: A method and system are provided for exchanging legacy network management messages securely. Legacy management messages are embedded as a user-defined object within SNMP messages. The SNMP messages are transmitted to managed nodes using a secure version of SNMP, such as SNMPv3. The managed nodes extract and process the legacy management messages from the SNMP messages. Any legacy response message is embedded within an SNMP message and transmitted back to the management station, which extracts the legacy response for processing. The method and system thereby allow legacy network management systems to be maintained, while adding a feature which permits more secure communication of the legacy management messages.

Abstract: One embodiment of the disclosures made herein is a method for facilitating protection switching via failure prediction techniques. In accordance with such a method, an operation for monitoring a failure prediction parameter of at least one of the plurality of protected system elements is performed. During monitoring, an operation is performed for correlating a present state of the failure prediction parameter to a failure prediction criterion for determining whether one of the protected system elements has been met a failure prediction condition, thus identifying a failure predicted one of a plurality of protected system elements when the failure prediction condition is met. An operation is performed for determining whether a protection switching priority among a collection of failure predicted system elements applies to the failure predicted one of the protected system elements.