Patent ID: 6980517

Claim:
A method of relieving congestion in a packet-based network that interconnects a plurality of peripheral networks by implementing corrective actions in said plurality of peripheral networks, said peripheral networks each comprising a plurality of switches, and said packet-based network comprising a plurality of gateway nodes having data to be transferred therebetween, and utilizing a concept of virtual pipelines between said gateway nodes, said pipelines comprising one or more channels, said method comprising the steps of: (1) identifying a first set of virtual pipelines for which traffic exceeds a predetermined threshold; (2) for each virtual pipeline in said first set of virtual pipelines, determining a number of additional channels needed to cause said traffic through said pipeline to not exceed said predetermined threshold; and (3) for each pipeline in said first set of virtual pipelines, assigning a corrective action and an amount of said corrective action to be taken in said peripheral networks as a function of said number of additional channels, wherein said corrective action comprises assigning a call gapping rate for each switch in said plurality of peripheral networks contributing traffic to said pipeline, and wherein said call gapping rates are (λt−λ N )/λ t where λ t is a call arrival rate for a corresponding pipeline; and λ N is a call arrival rate corresponding to said predetermined threshold for said corresponding pipeline.