Patent ID: 7573819

Claim:
A centralized method of providing admission control functionality in a communications system including a plurality of nodes, said plurality of nodes including a control node, at least a first node coupled to a second node by a first link, a third node coupled to the second node by a second link and a fourth node coupled to the third node by a third link, the control node coupled to at least one of said first, second, third, and further nodes, the method comprising: maintaining a set of link bandwidth utilization information, the set of link bandwidth utilization information including bandwidth utilization statistics for at least each of the first, second and third nodes; operating the control node to receive a service request corresponding to the first node and to determine from said maintained set of link bandwidth utilization information if there is sufficient bandwidth available on at least said second and third links to satisfy said service request; and operating the control node to generate the link bandwidth utilization information corresponding to said second link from an estimate of bandwidth that will be used on said second link by services over which said control node does not have admission control and a sum of services which will use said second link which said control node authorized, said services over which said control node does not have admission control including at least one service that uses a business switch or gateway router to pass traffic over said second link.