Patent ID: 8194546

Claim:
A method of determining traffic paths between one or more source-destination node pairs in a communications network, comprising: identifying input data at a network management system, said input data comprising: a first set of paths between said source-destination node pairs, said first set of paths used by a first routing protocol to route traffic between said source-destination node pairs; a fraction of traffic carried on said first set of paths for each path in said first set of paths; and a set of constraints associated with a second routing protocol; and using said input data to calculate at the network management system a second set of paths between said source-destination node pairs such that said second set of paths emulate said fraction of traffic carried on said first set of paths, each of said first and second set of paths extending from a network interface at a source node to a destination node; wherein the second set of paths is determined for use with the second routing protocol, different from said first routing protocol.