Patent ID: 7768924

Claim:
A method for informing one or more nodes of traffic management resource availability, comprising: establishing whether there is an available traffic management resource at a first node, a traffic management resource operable to track usage of bandwidth by a tunnel at the first node; recording whether there is an available traffic management resource in a traffic management link attribute; and sending the traffic management link attribute to one or more second nodes to inform the one or more second nodes of whether there is an available traffic management resource at the first nodes; wherein recording whether there is an available traffic management resource in a traffic management link attribute further comprises: if there is an available traffic management resource, then: if a previous value of the traffic management link attribute indicates there is an available traffic management resource, then maintaining the previous value; and if a previous value of the traffic management link attribute indicates there is no available traffic management resource, then set a current value to indicate that there is an available traffic management resource.