Patent ID: 7756959

Claim:
A self-provisioning operating network comprising: a plurality of operating nodes; a set of operating links interconnecting said operating nodes; and a provisioning server communicatively coupled to at least one of the operating nodes and maintaining an image of a set of phantom links emanating from a subset of the operating nodes, said image including a phantom capacity and a phantom vacancy for each phantom link; wherein an originating node from among said plurality of operating nodes: receives a connection request, from a data source, specifying a sink node from among said operating nodes and a flow-rate requirement; selects an operating route to the sink node, the operating route traversing a subset of the operating links; selects a phantom route to the sink node, the phantom route traversing a subset of the phantom links; and communicates the flow-rate requirement and identifiers of the subset of phantom links to the provisioning server; wherein the provisioning server allocates the flow-rate requirement and maintains utilization data of each phantom link, the utilization data determined as the difference between said phantom capacity and said phantom vacancy.