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Abstract

A packet network employs routers that determine network routing based on quality of service (QoS) provisioning parameters and network topology information. QoS provisioning parameters are provided to each router from a network management database, and the network topology information is determined from a link state database of the router. The link state database may include network topology information collected by the router in accordance with the open shortest path protocol (OSPF). A network link, router, or other node failure initiates a new path-selection process. First, a temporary set of provisioning entries may be determined with a shortest path first (SPF) routing method. Then, the network packet flows may be classified into packet flows, real-time and non-real-time, and then as packet flows that require reserved bandwidth or that may be multiplexed. A multicommodity flow (MCF) routing method is then employed to determine an optimized set of candidate provisioning entries for the packet flows that may be multiplexed. The MCF routing method determines new routing for the packet flows based on QoS provisioning commitments as parameters. The MCF routing method determines the new routing based on an optimization criterion, such as maximized revenue. Once the new routing is determined, routing of network traffic is enabled by converting the provisioning entries into filter rules, which are then loaded into the packet classifier of the router.

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