Patent Document ID: 8761183
Application ID: 11613251
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method, comprising: identifying a network topology; calculating circuit locations from the network topology; creating, via an electronic preprocessor unit, a dataset from the network topology and the circuit locations, the dataset serving as an input and comprising constraints, including: a maximum homing distance representing the maximum number of nodes between at least one of the one or more edge routers and at least one of the one or more core routers; and solving, via an electronic solver unit, the dataset to determine at least one output indicative of: a proposed placement of one or more core routers and one or more other routers into one or more node locations in the network topology, the proposed placement of the one or more core routers representing lowest cost and highest utilization of the one or more core routers, a primary path designated as a preferred working path connecting a source node and a destination node, through which the source node sends traffic, a secondary path designated as a protect path connecting the source node and the destination node, through which the source node is configured to send traffic in the event a portion of the preferred working path fails, a homing plan for one or more edge routers to the one or more core routers, and a link capacity for each of the one or more core routers, wherein the dataset comprises a plurality of variables that are optimized simultaneously to determine the output rather than optimizing one set of variables in a first optimization and then optimizing another set of variables within constraints established by the first optimization.