Patent ID: 7185077

Claim:
A method for managing a network of nodes, the steps comprising: requesting an initial set of network metrics for an initial subset of nodes in the network of nodes based on a connecting node attempting to establish a relationship with a target node of the initial subset, each network metric of the initial set associated with a respective node from the initial subset and measuring a performance aspect of the respective node relative to the network; receiving the initial set of the network metrics for the initial subset of nodes; establishing the relationship between the connecting node and the target node of the initial subset based on a comparison of the network metrics in the initial set; and prior to the step of requesting the initial set of network metrics, selecting a network metric from at least one of a bottleneck bandwidth metric, a latency metric, and a hop count metric; and further comprising the steps of: (i) choosing a revised subset of nodes based on the target node; (ii) requesting a revised set of the network metrics based on the revised subset; (iii) receiving the revised set of the network metrics based on the revised subset; (iv) establishing a selected relationship between the connecting node and a selected target node of the revised subset based on a comparison of the network metrics in the revised set of network metrics and setting the selected target node to be the target node; (v) repeating steps (i) through (iv) until determining that the selected relationship to the target node is a preferred relationship for the connecting node to the network.