Patent ID: 7590756

Claim:
A communication node of a communications network to reliably transfer data to a destination node comprising: a transmitter to transmit outgoing information to at least one other communication node within said network; a receiver to receive incoming information from at least one other communication node within said network; and a processor to control said transmission and reception of said outgoing and incoming information, wherein said processor includes: a marking module to determine one or more packets for reliable transmission and insert an indicator within the determined packets to identify those packets for reliable transmission in response to said communication node being a source node, wherein a packet includes an Internet Protocol header and said marking module includes a field module to assign values to at least a portion of said packet header to identify said packet for said reliable transmission; an agent module to perform routing functions, wherein said agent module includes: a primary module to determine a primary routing path for an identified packet utilizing information within a routing database; a secondary module to determine a secondary routing path for said identified packet utilizing information within said routing database, wherein said secondary path is the shortest path available including minimum overlap with said primary path; and a transmission module, responsive to availability of said secondary routing path, to generate a duplicate of said identified packet, to remove said indicator from said identified and duplicate packets, and to transmit said identified packet and said duplicate packet over said primary and secondary paths, respectively, wherein said identified and duplicate packets are in the form of routing protocol packets, and wherein a routing option of said routing protocol is enabled to control propagation of said identified and duplicate packets through said network.