Patent ID: 7990846

Claim:
A non-transitory computer readable medium, wherein computer instructions, when processed by a computer, adapt the operation of the computer to perform the steps for provisioning hop-limited protection paths in a network having a plurality of nodes interconnected by a plurality of links, comprising: dividing each of the plurality of links into a plurality of parallel sublinks to create a plurality of subnetworks, wherein each of the plurality of subnetworks includes the plurality of nodes interconnected by a plurality of subnetwork links, wherein of the plurality of subnetwork links comprises one or more of a respective plurality of parallel sublinks; sorting sublinks in a subnetwork of the plurality of subnetworks; wherein the sublinks are sorted according to the ratio: u ⁡ ( e ij ) + w ′ ⁡ ( e i ) u ⁡ ( e ij ) + u ′ ⁡ ( e i ) where: e i represents a link, e ij represents a sublink of the link e i , u represents total link capacity, u′ represents total capacities of the links previously considered, and w′ represents total working capacity previously considered.