US Patent 7474850 Reroutable protection schemes of an optical network

Reroutable protection schemes of an optical network are described herein. In one embodiment, an access node detects that at least a portion of a first path of an optical circuit fails based on a loss of a light of the at least a portion of the first path. In response to the detection, the access node provisions a second path leading to a destination node of the first path without waiting for an update of a routing database regarding the failure of the first path, where the second path satisfies a set of disjointness requirements with respect to the first path. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.