Patent ID: 8693339

Claim:
A method comprising: setting up a label switched path (LSP) from an ingress node to an egress node via one or more intermediate nodes, the LSP carrying traffic that is traffic engineering capable (TE traffic) and traffic that is not traffic engineering capable (NTE traffic); detecting, by one of the one or more intermediate nodes, traffic congestion associated with the LSP; modifying, by the one of the one or more intermediate nodes, one or more packets, associated with the NTE traffic, to create one or more modified packets that include an indicator of the traffic congestion; sending, by the one of the one or more intermediate nodes, the one or more modified packets towards the egress node; receiving, by the egress node, the one or more modified packets; identifying, by the egress node, the indicator of the traffic congestion within the one or more modified packets; generating, by the egress node and based on identifying the indicator of the traffic congestion, a congestion notification message that identifies the LSP traversed by the packet; and sending, by the egress node, the congestion notification message to the ingress node to notify the ingress node of the traffic congestion associated with the LSP; receiving, by the ingress node, the congestion notification message; determining, by the ingress node and based on the congestion notification message, that the traffic congestion exists on the LSP; determining, by the ingress node and after determining that the traffic congestion exists on the LSP, that the NTE traffic is high priority traffic; identifying, by the ingress node, another LSP for the NTE traffic after determining that the NTE traffic is high priority traffic; and sending, by the ingress node, one or more other packets, associated with the NTE traffic, via the other LSP.