Patent ID: 7403998

Claim:
A method of identifying a communications link requirement, said method comprising: selecting a first device type category from a plurality of device type categories, wherein each of the plurality of device type categories are different from each other; computing a first device type bandwidth requirement corresponding to the first device type category, the first device type bandwidth requirement including a first unit fault requirement and a first unit performance requirement, wherein the first unit fault requirement specifies a first unit fault bandwidth required to support a first device type's fault monitoring information; selecting a second device type category from the plurality of device type categories, the second device type category different from the first device type category; computing a second device type bandwidth requirement corresponding to the second device type category, the second device type bandwidth requirement including a second unit fault requirement and a second unit performance requirement, wherein the second unit fault requirement specifies a second unit fault bandwidth required to support a second device type's fault monitoring information, wherein the second device type's fault monitoring information is different than the first device type's fault monitoring information; receiving a plurality of customer device type requirements, wherein the plurality of customer device type requirements include a first customer device type requirement and a second customer device type requirement, the first customer device type requirement including a first customer device type quantity and the second customer device type requirement including a second customer device type quantity; mapping the plurality of customer device type requirements to the plurality of device type categories, the mapping resulting in matching the first customer device type requirement to the first device type category, and matching the second customer device type requirement to the second device type category; in response to the mapping, calculating a first device type total bandwidth requirement by multiplying the first customer device type quantity to the first device type bandwidth requirement, and calculating a second device type total bandwidth requirement by multiplying the second customer device type quantity to the second device type bandwidth requirement; calculating a network management bandwidth requirement that includes both the first device type total bandwidth requirement and the second device type total bandwidth requirement; and identifying the communications link requirement using the network management bandwidth requirement.