Patent Document ID: 20100097928
Application ID: 12643409
Patent Flag: 0

Claim One:
1. A method for adding links to a network topology model having a plurality of nodes connected by existing links to reduce the cost of network operation, the method comprising the steps of: (a) selecting a maximum number of potential links to be added to the network topology; (b) selecting a maximum number of new links to be added to the network topology; (c) finding a potential link that when added to the current network topology will result in a maximum reduction in the cost of network operation; (d) adding the potential link to the current network topology; (e) repeating steps (c) and (d) until the maximum number of potential links have been added to the current network topology; finding the potential link that when removed from the current network topology will result in the lowest cost of network operation; (g) removing the potential link from the current network topology; (h) repeating steps (f) and (g) until the maximum number of potential links is reduced to the maximum number of new links to be added to the network topology, wherein the removal of the potential link in step (g) is performed to reduce the cost of network operation without increasing an imbalance in link utilization.