Patent ID: 7317684

Claim:
A method for optimizing elastic flows in a multi-path network for a given traffic demand, the method comprising the steps of: jointly determining a bandwidth for each flow in a set of flows that realize the traffic demand and an optimized path for the traffic demand by maximizing a fairness utility, said step of jointly determining a bandwidth further comprising: (a) determining an optimal flow for each path; (b) setting the capacity of each link; (c) setting each total flow allocated to each traffic demand to a total flow allocated to each traffic demand plus a sum of the flows allocated to each path realizing each traffic demand for all paths; (d) setting each flow allocated to the path realizing the traffic demand to the flow allocated to the path realizing the traffic demand plus the optimal flow allocated to the path realizing the traffic demand; and (e) removing all saturated links and traffic demands that use saturated links; thereby providing optimal path selection and bandwidth allocation for elastic flows in the multi-path network for the given traffic demand.