Abstract: The present invention provides a method and apparatus for establishing dedicated local area network (LAN) connectivity between network elements (NEs) in an optical transmission network without using any of the payload transport capacity available. In order to provision dedicated LAN connections between NEs, the invention reallocates existing overhead functionality to provide dedicated bandwidth for LAN communications between NEs. At each NE, a respective LAN interface unit provides access to this dedicated bandwidth and allows LAN devices such as personal computers (PCs), servers and monitoring equipment to communicate across NEs of an optical transmission network without consuming any payload transport capacity available therein.

Abstract: Networks, network elements and methods providing a name resolution protocol which performs name resolution from a flat name space, such as the TL1 name space, to an address space, such as the IP address space are provided. Request functionality involves processing a requested name by determining if the requested name is the local name or a name of a previously resolved name-to-address mapping, and if not by sending a request message to a group of network elements which have joined the group, the request message containing the requested name for which a corresponding address is required. The group of addresses might for example be a multicast group of IP addresses.