Patent ID: 8094555

Claim:
A method, comprising: identifying a plurality of equal cost best paths to a destination with a shortest path first (SPF) algorithm that uses associated cost values for paths, each of the equal cost best paths having a plurality of associated links; receiving, at a network node, dynamic link utilization information for the associated links, the dynamic link utilization information separate from the cost values used by the SPF algorithm to identify the equal cost best paths as having equal cost; for each of the equal cost best paths, determining a weakest link of the equal cost best path based on the dynamic link utilization information for all the links of the equal cost best path; comparing the link utilization of the weakest link of each of the equal cost best paths; and determining, at the network node, an amount of traffic to the destination to forward over each of the equal cost best paths, the amount of traffic to the destination to forward over each of the equal cost best paths being dynamically dependent upon the compared dynamic link utilization of the weakest link of each equal cost best path.