Patent ID: 8787208

Claim:
A method for allocating backbone virtual local area network identifiers (BVIDs) to connection requests in a provider backbone bridging-traffic engineering (PBB-TE) network, the method comprising: receiving a set of connection requests for a set of connections that are desired to be set up in the PBB-TE network; and allocating a BVID to each connection request in the set of connection requests so that, once the set of connection requests are set up in the PBB-TE network, conflicting connections in the PBB-TE network have different BVIDs, wherein said allocating comprises: determining a path from a source node to a destination node associated with the connection request; selecting a BVID; determining a first sub-network of the PBB-TE network such that each link in the first sub-network carries one or more connections that are associated with the selected BVID; determining a second sub-network by performing a union of the path and the first sub-network; and in response to determining that the second sub-network does not contain a cycle, allocating the selected BVID to the connection request.