Patent ID: 7668184

Claim:
A method for designing a bi-connected ring-based network comprising: receiving a list of locations where network traffic is at least one of originated and delivered; receiving a list of pairs of directly connected locations, each defining a corresponding network traffic carrying connection including one or more signal carrying connections between each of the directly connected locations, and a capacity for each of the network traffic carrying connections; receiving a list of traffic demand between each of the listed pairs of locations; determining a dual homed cover including one or more dual homed cycles, each cycle comprising a closed loop sequence of directly connected locations and corresponding network traffic carrying connections, wherein each location, which is capable of being bi-connected, is included in at least one of the one or more dual homed cycles; routing the traffic demand over the one or more cycles via the one or more of the network traffic carrying connections; at least one of outputting a report and storing a representation containing the designed bi-connected ring-based network; where determining includes: finding a list of candidate cycles by finding a minimal length cycle for each unordered pair of locations; selecting one or more of the candidate cycles from the list and, after routing the traffic demand over the one or more cycles, adding additional traffic carrying capacity for each of the network traffic carrying connections where the routed traffic demand exceeds the available capacity.