A multi-service transport and receiving method and apparatus are provided. The method includes: obtaining mapping transport control information of M services; determining a mapping procedure of the M services; and mapping the M services to a variable optical payload unit according to the mapping procedure. Therefore, a transport solution can be flexibly customized based on a transport requirement of a client service, so that a data plane becomes programmable.

Systems and methods include, for a plurality of services operating on a plurality of network elements in a network, determining attributes for one or more events that periodically occur; and providing a configuration based on the determined attributes to the plurality of network elements for configuring the associated network elements, wherein the configuration controls and coordinates when actions associated with the one or more events occur, across the plurality of network elements and across one or more protocol layers.

Systems and methods of coordinating and scheduling intervals in a network element in a network include configuring one or more attributes of a plurality of timer-based events at the network element, wherein the plurality of timer-based events include protocol-based actions which are performed responsive to expiry of an associated timer, and wherein the one or more attributes define when the protocol-based actions occur; operating one or more services at one or more protocols; and performing associated protocol-based actions based on the one or more attributes and based on expiry of the associated timer.

A node includes circuitry configured to interface a stream of encoded blocks with the blocks including i) data blocks from one or more clients and ii) overhead blocks, wherein a calendar is utilized for block distribution in the stream of encoded blocks; and circuitry configured to process one or more Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) fields in the overhead blocks, wherein the OAM fields are associated with the one or more clients in the data blocks.

A node configured to support a Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) client service in a network includes circuitry configured to interface a FlexE client; and circuitry configured to monitor and update one or more Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) fields associated with the FlexE client, wherein the one or more OAM fields include a monitoring field that covers 64b/66b codes for a path of the FlexE client. A method, implemented in a node, for supporting a Flexible Ethernet (FlexE) client service in a network includes interfacing a FlexE client; and updating and monitoring one or more Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) fields associated with the FlexE client, wherein the one or more OAM fields include a monitoring field that covers 64b/66b codes for a path of the FlexE client.

A method for measuring transmission delay of an optical transport network (OTN) device and a source OTN device. The method comprises: a source OTN device receives a delay measurement request transmitted by a user, generates a delay request frame, and transmits the delay request frame to a destination OTN device; the source OTN device receives a response frame returned from the destination OTN device, the response frame including a first time information; after receiving the response frame returned from the destination OTN device, the source OTN device obtains the system time T4 at when the response frame is received by the source OTN device; the source OTN device parses the response frame to obtain the first time information, and calculates the transmission delay between the source OTN device and the destination OTN device according to T4 and the first time information.

Systems and methods of end-to-end data path integrity validation of a service with a data path at Layer 1 and Layer 2 implemented by a network element include, responsive to initiation of a test, messaging between network elements in the data path to coordinate defect and statistics collection at each of the network elements in the data path; receiving results for the defect and statistics collection from each of the network elements in the data path; and summarizing the received results to form a consolidated report for the test across all of the network elements in the data path.

Systems and methods of coordinating and scheduling intervals in a network element in a network include configuring one or more attributes of a plurality of timer-based events at the network element, wherein the plurality of timer-based events include protocol-based actions which are performed responsive to expiry of an associated timer, and wherein the one or more attributes define when the protocol-based actions occur; operating one or more services at one or more protocols; and performing associated protocol-based actions based on the one or more attributes and based on expiry of the associated timer.

A method for transmitting a client signal in an optical transport network includes: dividing a payload of an optical payload unit signal into m first-granularity tributary slots; dividing one of the m first-granularity tributary slots into n second-granularity tributary slots, where a rate of the first-granularity tributary slot is n times that of the second-granularity tributary slot, m is a positive integer, and n is a positive integer greater than 1; mapping a first client signal onto a payload in which one or more of the n second-granularity tributary slots are located; adding an overhead of the first-granularity tributary slot and an overhead of the second-granularity tributary slot for the optical payload unit signal, to generate an optical data unit signal; and sending the optical data unit signal.

A node includes circuitry configured to create a sequence of encoded blocks with the blocks including i) data blocks from a plurality of clients and ii) overhead blocks, insert one or more Operations, Administration, and Maintenance (OAM) fields representing client overhead in the overhead blocks, wherein each client has corresponding client overhead, and transmit the sequence of encoded blocks in an order.