diff --git a/core/store/dist/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/store/link/impl/GossipLinkStore.java b/core/store/dist/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/store/link/impl/GossipLinkStore.java
index e82742a..9810d7a 100644
--- a/core/store/dist/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/store/link/impl/GossipLinkStore.java
+++ b/core/store/dist/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/store/link/impl/GossipLinkStore.java
@@ -65,6 +65,7 @@
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.HashSet;
 import java.util.Map;
+import java.util.Objects;
 import java.util.Set;
 import java.util.Map.Entry;
 import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap;
@@ -448,8 +449,12 @@
                 // outdated remove request, ignore
                 return null;
             }
+            Link link = links.get(key);
+            if (isDurable(link)) {
+                return null;
+            }
             removedLinks.put(key, timestamp);
-            Link link = links.remove(key);
+            links.remove(key);
             linkDescriptions.clear();
             if (link != null) {
                 srcLinks.remove(link.src().deviceId(), key);
@@ -460,6 +465,11 @@
         }
     }
 
+    // Indicates if the link has been marked as durable via annotations.
+    private boolean isDurable(Link link) {
+        return link != null && Objects.equals(link.annotations().value("durable"), "true");
+    }
+
     private static <K, V> SetMultimap<K, V> createSynchronizedHashMultiMap() {
         return synchronizedSetMultimap(HashMultimap.<K, V>create());
     }
diff --git a/core/store/trivial/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/store/trivial/impl/SimpleLinkStore.java b/core/store/trivial/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/store/trivial/impl/SimpleLinkStore.java
index 8383754..50f4e06 100644
--- a/core/store/trivial/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/store/trivial/impl/SimpleLinkStore.java
+++ b/core/store/trivial/src/main/java/org/onlab/onos/store/trivial/impl/SimpleLinkStore.java
@@ -46,6 +46,7 @@
 import java.util.HashMap;
 import java.util.HashSet;
 import java.util.Map;
+import java.util.Objects;
 import java.util.Set;
 import java.util.Map.Entry;
 import java.util.concurrent.ConcurrentHashMap;
@@ -233,7 +234,11 @@
         final LinkKey key = linkKey(src, dst);
         Map<ProviderId, LinkDescription> descs = getOrCreateLinkDescriptions(key);
         synchronized (descs) {
-            Link link = links.remove(key);
+            Link link = links.get(key);
+            if (isDurable(link)) {
+                return null;
+            }
+            links.remove(key);
             descs.clear();
             if (link != null) {
                 srcLinks.remove(link.src().deviceId(), key);
@@ -244,6 +249,11 @@
         }
     }
 
+    // Indicates if the link has been marked as durable via annotations.
+    private boolean isDurable(Link link) {
+        return link != null && Objects.equals(link.annotations().value("durable"), "true");
+    }
+
     private static <K, V> SetMultimap<K, V> createSynchronizedHashMultiMap() {
         return synchronizedSetMultimap(HashMultimap.<K, V>create());
     }
diff --git a/tools/package/etc/org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.cfg b/tools/package/etc/org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.cfg
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..24010da
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tools/package/etc/org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.cfg
@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+################################################################################
+#
+#    Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one or more
+#    contributor license agreements.  See the NOTICE file distributed with
+#    this work for additional information regarding copyright ownership.
+#    The ASF licenses this file to You under the Apache License, Version 2.0
+#    (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with
+#    the License.  You may obtain a copy of the License at
+#
+#       http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+#
+#    Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+#    distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+#    WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+#    See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+#    limitations under the License.
+#
+################################################################################
+
+#
+# If set to true, the following property will not allow any certificate to be used
+# when accessing Maven repositories through SSL
+#
+#org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.certificateCheck=
+
+#
+# Path to the local Maven settings file.
+# The repositories defined in this file will be automatically added to the list
+# of default repositories if the 'org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.repositories' property
+# below is not set.
+# The following locations are checked for the existence of the settings.xml file
+#   * 1. looks for the specified url
+#   * 2. if not found looks for ${user.home}/.m2/settings.xml
+#   * 3. if not found looks for ${maven.home}/conf/settings.xml
+#   * 4. if not found looks for ${M2_HOME}/conf/settings.xml
+#
+#org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.settings=
+
+#
+# Path to the local Maven repository which is used to avoid downloading
+# artifacts when they already exist locally.
+# The value of this property will be extracted from the settings.xml file
+# above, or defaulted to:
+#     System.getProperty( "user.home" ) + "/.m2/repository"
+#
+#org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.localRepository=
+
+#
+# Default this to false. It's just weird to use undocumented repos
+#
+org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.useFallbackRepositories=false
+
+#
+# Uncomment if you don't wanna use the proxy settings
+# from the Maven conf/settings.xml file
+#
+# org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.proxySupport=false
+
+#
+# Comma separated list of repositories scanned when resolving an artifact.
+# Those repositories will be checked before iterating through the
+#    below list of repositories and even before the local repository
+# A repository url can be appended with zero or more of the following flags:
+#    @snapshots  : the repository contains snaphots
+#    @noreleases : the repository does not contain any released artifacts
+#
+# The following property value will add the system folder as a repo.
+#
+org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.defaultRepositories=\
+    file:${karaf.home}/${karaf.default.repository}@id=system.repository@snapshots,\
+    file:${karaf.data}/kar@id=kar.repository@multi@snapshots
+
+# Use the default local repo (e.g.~/.m2/repository) as a "remote" repo
+#org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.defaultLocalRepoAsRemote=false
+
+#
+# Comma separated list of repositories scanned when resolving an artifact.
+# The default list includes the following repositories:
+#    http://repo1.maven.org/maven2@id=central
+#    http://repository.springsource.com/maven/bundles/release@id=spring.ebr
+#    http://repository.springsource.com/maven/bundles/external@id=spring.ebr.external
+#    http://zodiac.springsource.com/maven/bundles/release@id=gemini
+#    http://repository.apache.org/content/groups/snapshots-group@id=apache@snapshots@noreleases
+#    https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots@id=sonatype.snapshots.deploy@snapshots@norelease
+#    https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/ops4j-snapshots@id=ops4j.sonatype.snapshots.deploy@snapshots@noreleases
+# To add repositories to the default ones, prepend '+' to the list of repositories
+# to add.
+# A repository url can be appended with zero or more of the following flags:
+#    @snapshots  : the repository contains snapshots
+#    @noreleases : the repository does not contain any released artifacts
+#    @id=repository.id : the id for the repository, just like in the settings.xml this is optional but recommended
+#
+org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.repositories= \
+    ${org.ops4j.pax.url.mvn.defaultRepositories}, \
+    http://repo1.maven.org/maven2@id=central, \
+    http://repository.springsource.com/maven/bundles/release@id=spring.ebr.release, \
+    http://repository.springsource.com/maven/bundles/external@id=spring.ebr.external, \
+    http://zodiac.springsource.com/maven/bundles/release@id=gemini, \
+    http://repository.apache.org/content/groups/snapshots-group@id=apache@snapshots@noreleases, \
+    https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/snapshots@id=sonatype.snapshots.deploy@snapshots@norelease, \
+    https://oss.sonatype.org/content/repositories/ops4j-snapshots@id=ops4j.sonatype.snapshots.deploy@snapshots@noreleases
diff --git a/tools/test/topos/oe-linear-3.json b/tools/test/topos/oe-linear-3.json
index 91c4f34..728b472 100644
--- a/tools/test/topos/oe-linear-3.json
+++ b/tools/test/topos/oe-linear-3.json
@@ -34,11 +34,11 @@
     ],
 
     "links" : [
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff01/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff03/30", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM" } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff02/21", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff03/31", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff01/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff03/30", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff02/21", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff03/31", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "durable": "true" } },
 
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0001/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff01/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect" } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0002/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff02/11", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect" } }
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0001/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff01/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect", "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0002/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff02/11", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect", "durable": "true" } }
     ],
 
     "hosts" : [
diff --git a/tools/test/topos/oe-nonlinear-10.json b/tools/test/topos/oe-nonlinear-10.json
index 154cf4d..f23bb9b 100644
--- a/tools/test/topos/oe-nonlinear-10.json
+++ b/tools/test/topos/oe-nonlinear-10.json
@@ -108,25 +108,25 @@
     ],
 
     "links" : [
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff01/10", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff02/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff02/10", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff03/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff03/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff04/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff02/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff05/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff03/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff06/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff05/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff06/20", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff05/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff07/21", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff06/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff08/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff07/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff08/20", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff07/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff09/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff08/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff0A/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff09/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff0A/20", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000 } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff01/10", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff02/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff02/10", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff03/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff03/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff04/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff02/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff05/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff03/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff06/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff05/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff06/20", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff05/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff07/21", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff06/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff08/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff07/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff08/20", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff07/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff09/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff08/30", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff0A/10", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffffff09/20", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff0A/20", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "optical.waves": 80, "optical.type": "WDM", "optical.kms": 1000, "durable": "true" } },
 
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0001/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff01/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect" } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0003/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff03/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect" } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0004/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff04/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect" } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0007/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff07/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect" } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0009/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff09/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect" } },
-        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff000A/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff0A/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect" } }
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0001/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff01/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect", "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0003/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff03/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect", "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0004/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff04/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect", "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0007/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff07/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect", "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff0009/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff09/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect", "durable": "true" } },
+        { "src": "of:0000ffffffff000A/2", "dst": "of:0000ffffffffff0A/1", "type": "OPTICAL", "annotations": { "bandwidth": 100000, "optical.type": "cross-connect", "durable": "true" } }
     ],
 
     "hosts" : [