Shared protection is an efficient and economic protection scheme. This paper discusses three kinds of shared protection. They all have their own characteristics. Shared protection via OSF is based upon IP network controllers
and it is mainly used in ring network topology. Shared protection by use of OXC is based upon MPLS control plane
and it can be used in any type of topology. Shared protection through appropriate logical topology has application in the design of protected SONET/WDM and IP/WDM networks.