Patent ID: 7581022

Claim:
A method for use at a router at a point of ingress to an autonomous system of selecting a point of egress from the autonomous system toward a destination comprising: identifying a plurality of points of egress from the autonomous system; ranking the plurality of points of egress according to a metric having variable and fixed terms; selecting a point of egress having the smallest rank; and transmitting packets from a point of ingress via a path to the selected point of egress, wherein the metric is across a plurality of destinations and respective possible points of egress from the autonomous system and the metric is m(i, p, e) equaling α(i, p, e)·d(G,i,e)+β(i, p, e) where α and β are configurable values, i is the identity of the router, p is the destination, G is an undirected weighted graph, the d function is the interior gateway protocol distance and e is a point of egress.