End-to-end notification of local protection using OAM protocol

An end-to-end monitoring mechanism whereby edge nodes are notified that a particular path flows through a local protection tunnel along the way. The notification mechanism utilizes OAM packets which include a link protection indication that are transmitted on the Ethernet service layer. The link protection indication may be represented by one or more flags to indicate that local protection is in place along the path. The mechanism enables fast local protection to be used with slower end-to-end protection by informing the latter when local protection is activated. In an implementation in which local-protection does not preserve the CIR of the protected traffic, the invention provides minimal interruption of Committed Information Rate (CIR) connections by minimizing the time traffic is diverted through local protection tunnels. Notification of the edge node that local protection is in use occurs very quickly, thus allowing the edge node to rapidly switch to a backup path.