Patent ID: 8130638

Claim:
A method comprising: in response to attachment of a first router to a new area, executing an area border router election algorithm on the first router to determine whether or not the first router should declare itself to be an ABR; determining, by the area border router election algorithm executing on the first router, a full set of areas attached to the first router; determining, by the area border router election algorithm executing on the first router, a full set of area pairs from the determined full set of areas; and until the first router is declared to be an area border router or all areas in the determined full set of areas have been examined: determining, by the area border router election algorithm executing on the first router, area border routers and potential area border routers in a first area of the determined full set of areas that are reachable through an intra-area route in the first area, determining, by the area border router election algorithm executing on the first router, area border routers and potential area border routers in a second area of the determined full set of areas that are reachable through an intra-area route in the second area, and for any area pair in the determined full set of area pairs, if there are less than a predetermined number of area border routers and potential area border routers that are reachable through either an intra-area route in the first area or an intra-area route in the second area, then declaring, by the first router executing the area border router election algorithm, the first router to be an area border router, else selecting new first and second areas from the determined full set of areas.