Patent ID: 7505413

Claim:
A system to estimate point-to-point bandwidth demand within a network including a plurality of nodes and a plurality of links between the plurality of nodes, the system comprising: a network controller to determine link traffic measures for a set of links of the network, the link traffic measures each indicating a measured utilization of a respective link, and to determine point-to-point bandwidth demand measures between a set of nodes of the network, the point-to-point bandwidth demand measures each indicating a measured demand between a source node and a destination node included in the set of nodes; and a demand estimation module, coupled to the network controller, to receive the link traffic measures and the point-to-point bandwidth demand measures from the network controller, and to calculate a plurality of point-to-point bandwidth demand estimates for the plurality of nodes utilizing the link traffic measures and the point-to-point bandwidth demand measures, wherein the demand estimation module can identify a set of point-to-point bandwidth demand levels that is close to the point-to-point bandwidth demand measures.