Patent ID: 6868068

Claim:
A method comprising: identifying enterprise network element pairs, wherein said enterprise network element pairs are pairs of ones of a plurality of enterprise network elements, and each one of said enterprise network elements is coupled to at least one other of said enterprise network elements; identifying ones of a plurality of backbone network elements as ingress/egress backbone network elements, wherein each one of said backbone network elements is coupled to at least one other of said backbone network elements, and each one of said ingress/egress backbone network elements is coupled to at least one of said ones of said enterprise network elements; for each of said enterprise network element pairs, identifying a path between a first and a second enterprise network element of said each of said enterprise network element pairs; for each one of said paths that includes a pair of said ingress/egress backbone network elements, identifying a virtual path between said pair of said ingress/egress backbone network elements; and identifying a plurality of independent paths of said paths and a plurality of non-independent paths of said paths, wherein each of said non-independent paths can be defined as a combination of ones of said independent paths, and at least one of said independent paths includes at least one of said virtual paths.