A method and apparatus for realizing service protection are provided. The method includes the following steps: determining paths corresponding to automatic protection switching (APS)/protection communication channel (PCC) overhead bytes that are available to all nodes in a service protection trail; selecting a path for service protection from the determined paths corresponding to the APS/PCC; and using the selected path for implementing the service protection. Therefore, it is ensured that several service protections using APS/PCC may coexist in an optical transport network (OTN) and different kinds of service protection can be easily distinguished from one another.