Patent ID: 8185616

Claim:
A route designing method of designing a communication route between user sites in a network management device connecting to a relay node in a network that connects user sites to each other through relay nodes and links, the method comprising steps of: accepting an input of user information containing information about a bandwidth of an access link serving as a link for connecting one of the user sites to the relay node; acquiring topology information of the network for relaying the communications between the user sites, wherein each of the user sites is a point through which traffic of a user flows into/out of the network; making each of the relay nodes set each of ports held by the each of the relay nodes up as a communication relay port or a communication non-relay port on the basis of a result of a route design in a way that refers to the user information and the topology information containing information about the each of the ports held by the each of the relay nodes; making each of the relay nodes set an upper limit of a communication bandwidth of the communication relay port; and performing the route design so that the user sites are connected by one of a plurality of shortest hop-by-hop routes, each of the shortest hop-by-hop routes being configured with a site accommodation node as the relay node connecting to corresponding one or more of the user sites via a corresponding access link, wherein the route design comprises: obtaining shortest route trees with site accommodation nodes each serving as a root node for a corresponding one of the shortest route trees, obtaining evaluation values of each of the site accommodation nodes with respect to the corresponding one of the shortest route trees based on (1) bands utilizable on the access link for connecting each corresponding user site to the relay nodes and (2) a number of relay nodes needed for reaching from the each corresponding user site, selecting one site accommodation node among the site accommodation nodes based on the obtained evaluation values, and determining a shortest hop-by-hop route for connecting the selected site accommodation node as the root node to each of the other site accommodation nodes with a minimum hop count.