This paper presents a framework for providing survivability to group communications where part of the underlying traffic layer infrastructure is connection-oriented. The framework is multi-layered to express the virtual overlays inherent to networked systems, describes survivability issues unique to group communications, and outlines tradeoffs between restoration techniques that can be extended from circuit-switched communications. The conclusion is disjoint dedicated backup route sets to provide survivability for connection-oriented group communications is preferable but more research needs to be done on coordination between layers and scalable techniques within the survivability framework presented.