A method and system for tracking physical route changes in an optical switching network. One embodiment comprises a method for detecting changes in physical routes of connections within an optical switching network. The method includes receiving an event message from a node of the optical switching network where the event message relates to an event at the node, applying a filtering function to the event message to determine whether the event message may be ignored, ignoring the event message if the event message does not pass the filtering function, and processing the event message if the event message passes the filtering function.