Patent ID: 7443857
Filing Date: 2008-10-28
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. An apparatus, comprising: control circuitry; and a memory coupled to the control circuitry comprising instructions executable by the control circuitry, the control circuitry operable when executing the instructions to: exchange local peer group topology information updates with local nodes the local nodes contained within a local peer group of the apparatus and connected to the apparatus independently of any trunk links, the local peer group topology information updates exchanged over at least one local peer group horizontal link and independently of any trunk links; receive, over at least one trunk link that connects the local peer group to a remote peer group, a call setup signaling message sent by a remote originating node, the call setup signal message to initiate routing of a virtual circuit connection; inspect a predefined portion of the call setup signaling message for information formatted as one or more Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) Generic Application Transport Information Elements (GATIE), and if such information is present, analyze the present ATM GATIEs for a link utilization threshold value; generate a dynamic local peer group horizontal link utilization value of the local peer group horizontal link based at least in part on the local peer group topology information updates, the generated dynamic local peer group horizontal link utilization value corresponding to a current utilization of the local peer group horizontal link; compare the dynamic local peer group horizontal link utilization value with the link utilization threshold value; determine whether the dynamic local peer group horizontal link utilization value exceeds the link utilization threshold value according to the comparison; and control whether the local peer group horizontal link is included in the virtual circuit connection according to said determination; wherein the remote peer group is logically segmented from the local peer group the remote peer group maintaining network topology information independently of the local peer group topology information updates.