Patent ID: 8570875

Claim:
A computing device-implemented method, the method comprising: receiving, by a processor of the computing device, network configuration information from a network, the network configuration information including operational states of network elements associated with the network; determining, by the processor, a logical network based on the network configuration information, the logical network including a new capacity model of the network, an entrance facility capacity model of the network, and an incumbent capacity model of the network, determining the logical network including: determining the new capacity model of the network by: creating a potential collocation node based on a first local exchange carrier (LEC) path entrance of the network, determining a second local exchange carrier (LEC) path entrance of the network to include a collocation, providing digital signal 1 (DS 1 ) arcs to and from the first local exchange carrier (LEC) path entrance and the second local exchange carrier (LEC) path entrance, and providing digital signal 3 (DS 3 ) arcs to and from the first local exchange carrier (LEC) path entrance and the second local exchange carrier (LEC) path entrance; constructing, by the processor, a mixed integer programming (MIP) model based on the new capacity model, the entrance facility capacity model, and the incumbent capacity model of the logical network; calculating, by the processor, an optimal baseline solution, that minimizes network costs, using the mixed integer programming (MIP) model; performing, by the processor, an automatic collocation optimization procedure, on an existing configuration of the network and based on the optimal baseline solution, to produce a ranked list of optimal collocation solutions for the network; and providing the ranked list of optimal collocation solutions to the network for implementation.