Embodiments of the invention are generally directed to a system and method of implementing peer model architecture in integrated optical networks. In one embodiment, heterogeneous domains of nodes share a common control plane via routing and signaling adjacencies established through a network layer control channel. For example, in one embodiment, one or more Internet Protocol (IP) compliant routers, one or more Time Domain Multiplexing (TDM) switches, and one or more Wave Division Multiplexing (WDM) optical cross connects (OXC) run a common instance of an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP).