Patent ID: 7023806

Claim:
A method of determining a route for transmitting a signal through a network, the method comprising: obtaining network data, including link type data, spare capacity data, vendor data, and common mileage data; obtaining demand data, including origination node data, termination node data, and diversity requirement data; storing the network data and the demand data; processing the demand data using a shortest path routing method to obtain an initial route; updating the network data by decreasing the spare capacity data in accordance with the initial route; computing an initial cost based on the initial route; updating the network data by increasing the spare capacity data in accordance with deleting the initial route; re-processing the demand data using a constrained diverse shortest path routing method until a stop criterion is satisfied and obtaining a final route; computing a final cost based on the final route; and outputting the final route and the final cost, wherein the constrained diverse shortest path routing method minimizes use of optical transponders in obtaining the final route according to ∑ k ∈ K ⁢ ⁢ n k / max k ≤ 1 where n k denotes a cumulative total count of optical transponders along a path kεK, K denotes a set of possible vendor/release combinations and max k is a predetermined parameter specified for each kεK.