ROUTING BANDWIDTH-RESERVED CONNECTIONS IN INFORMATION NETWORKS

摘要

This invention defines a routing method which allows to determine best paths from link weights in situations where these weights are not additive, but the characteristic of a concatenated path is determined mainly by single "bottleneck" links. To be compatible, the metric must be chosen from a specific set of metrics, called bottleneck metrics in this description. The new widest-path method has some characteristics in common with the known Dijkstra method for additive weights. Implementations in communication networks are disclosed which lead to new nodes, new networks and new network protocols. The widest-path method, however, can solve many other routing problems not necessarily related to electronic communication.