Patent ID: 8457107

Claim:
A method comprising: retrieving topology information associated with a ring network that includes a plurality of rings, each of the rings including one or more nodes; selecting a start node and an end node associated with the ring network; determining one or more rings of the plurality of rings that include the start node and the end node; determining a minimum set of one or more interconnected rings of the ring network associated with the determined one or more rings that include the start node and the end node using a shortest path first algorithm; and determining one or more shortest paths between the start node and the end node on the determined minimum set, wherein determining a minimum set of interconnected rings associated with the determined one or more rings that include the start node and the end node comprises collapsing each ring into a node and for each ring node, determining a cost of ring interconnection between each immediately connected ring, and selecting the interconnected rings having the lowest total cost of ring interconnection between the start node and the end node as the minimum set.