This document discusses how failures at the lower optical network level can propagate and impact higher network levels like SONET or IP if not properly addressed. It analyzes three types of failure propagation problems: bottleneck, connectivity, and multiple groups. The authors then propose a solution called Protection Interoperability for WDM (PIW) which defines requirements for how higher level demands are placed in the optical network, and uses an algorithm to carefully map demands to minimize infrastructure usage while satisfying the requirements. This is intended to limit failure propagation without requiring changes to higher level networks.