Proactively managing computed optical restoration paths

1 . A non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising instructions that, when executed, cause one or more processors to perform steps of:

continuously tracking health of services in an optical network, monitoring how many restoration paths remain accessible to an on-box control plane, and quality of any remaining restoration paths;

managing restoration paths installed on a plurality of nodes in the optical network to one or more of remove unavailable restoration paths and add new available restoration paths for any of the services in the optical network, including maintaining for each service a restoration path set installed on a head-end node of the plurality of nodes and dynamically updating the restoration path set to remove unavailable restoration paths and add newly computed restoration paths;

responsive to detecting one or more at-risk services, for the one or more at-risk services, performing computation of new viable restoration paths and a multi-stage policy-based ranking of the new restoration paths for the one or more at-risk services; and

for the one or more at risk services, pushing the ranked new viable restoration paths to the on-box control plane based on thresholds, including refreshing the restoration path set installed at the head-end node so that an on-box restoration engine has validated restoration paths available before exhausting a current set of restoration paths for the service.

2 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the on-box control plane is implemented via the plurality of nodes, and the services are managed by an associated head-end node of the plurality of nodes,

wherein the associated head-end node includes a restoration path set comprising a plurality of restoration paths installed thereon for the service and selectable by the on-box control plane for restoration of the service.

3 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the steps are performed by an off-box processing system communicatively coupled to the optical network and the on-box control plane.

4 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the new viable restoration paths are determined first using End-of-Life (EOL) viability, second using instantaneous viability, and finally using downshifted capacity.

5 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the steps further include

for an at-risk service of the one or more at-risk services, responsive to detecting a number of corresponding restoration paths is below a threshold, determining an emergency restoration path for the at-risk service and pushing the emergency restoration path to a corresponding head-end node for the at-risk service.

6 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the multi-stage policy-based ranking includes

processing the services based on priority, relaxing constraints on the processing for lower priority services, and determining the new restoration paths considering up-time of links and over-subscription of the links.

7 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the computation of the new viable restoration paths includes

considering for use any equipment in the optical network that is available due to one of faults and installed for future use.

8 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the steps further include

subsequent to the pushing the ranked new viable restoration paths for a service of the one or more at-risk services, monitoring the optical network for any opportunity to return to the restoration paths for the service prior to the pushing.

9 . The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the steps further include

displaying a user interface visualizing the one or more at-risk services including any of the at-risk services due to lack of communication to the on-box control plane.

10 . A method comprising steps of:

continuously tracking health of services in an optical network, monitoring how many restoration paths remain accessible to an on-box control plane, and quality of any remaining restoration paths;

managing restoration paths installed on a plurality of nodes in the optical network to one or more of remove unavailable restoration paths and add new available restoration paths for any of the services in the optical network, including maintaining for each service a restoration path set installed on a head-end node of the plurality of nodes and dynamically updating the restoration path set to remove unavailable restoration paths and add newly computed restoration paths;

responsive to detecting one or more at-risk services, for the one or more at-risk services, performing computation of new viable restoration paths and a multi-stage policy-based ranking of the new restoration paths for the one or more at-risk services; and

for the one or more at risk services, pushing the ranked new viable restoration paths to the on-box control plane based on thresholds, including refreshing the restoration path set installed at the head-end node so that an on-box restoration engine has validated restoration paths available before exhausting a current set of restoration paths for the service.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the on-box control plane is implemented via the plurality of nodes, and the services are managed by an associated head-end node of the plurality of nodes,

wherein the associated head-end node includes a restoration path set comprising a plurality of restoration paths installed thereon for the service and selectable by the on-box control plane for restoration of the service.

12 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the steps are performed by an off-box processing system communicatively coupled to the optical network and the on-box control plane.

13 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the new viable restoration paths are determined first using End-of-Life (EOL) viability, second using instantaneous viability, and finally using downshifted capacity.

14 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the steps further include

for an at-risk service of the one or more at-risk services, responsive to detecting a number of corresponding restoration paths is below a threshold, determining an emergency restoration path for the at-risk service and pushing the emergency restoration path to a corresponding head-end node for the at-risk service.

15 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the multi-stage policy-based ranking includes

processing the services based on priority, relaxing constraints on the processing for lower priority services, and determining the new restoration paths considering up-time of links and over-subscription of the links.

16 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the computation of the new viable restoration paths includes

considering for use any equipment in the optical network that is available due to one of faults and installed for future use.

17 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the steps further include

subsequent to the pushing the ranked new viable restoration paths for a service of the one or more at-risk services, monitoring the optical network for any opportunity to return to the restoration paths for the service prior to the pushing.

18 . An apparatus comprising:

one or more processors, a network interface communicatively coupled to an on-box control plane associated with an optical network, and memory storing instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to

continuously track health of services in the optical network, monitoring how many restoration paths remain accessible to an on-box control plane, and quality of any remaining restoration paths;

managing restoration paths installed on a plurality of nodes in the optical network to one or more of remove unavailable restoration paths and add new available restoration paths for any of the services in the optical network, including maintaining for each service a restoration path set installed on a head-end node of the plurality of nodes and dynamically updating the restoration path set to remove unavailable restoration paths and add newly computed restoration paths;

responsive to detecting one or more at-risk services, for the one or more at-risk services, performing computation of new viable restoration paths and a multi-stage policy-based ranking of the new restoration paths for the one or more at-risk services; and

for the one or more at risk services, pushing the ranked new viable restoration paths to the on-box control plane based on thresholds, including refreshing the restoration path set installed at the head-end node so that an on-box restoration engine has validated restoration paths available before exhausting a current set of restoration paths for the service.

19 . The apparatus of claim 18 , wherein the on-box control plane is implemented via the plurality of nodes, and the services are managed by an associated head-end node of the plurality of nodes,

wherein the associated head-end node includes a restoration path set comprising a plurality of restoration paths installed thereon for the service and selectable by the on-box control plane for restoration of the service.

20 . The apparatus of claim 18 , wherein the new viable restoration paths are determined first using End-of-Life (EOL) viability, second using instantaneous viability, and finally using downshifted capacity.