Patent Document ID: 8995249
Application ID: 13766674
Patent Flag: 1

Claim One:
1. A method, comprising: performing, by one or more computing devices: collecting traffic load data as historical traffic load data for each of a plurality of routes in a network environment comprising a plurality of distinct networks, wherein each route carries traffic between two of the networks over one or more physical connections, wherein each physical connection connects a router of one of the networks to a router of another one of the networks; generating a topology model of the network environment, wherein the topology model includes the networks, the physical connections between the networks, and the routes between the networks over the physical connections; analyzing the topology model to determine an extreme-case break for each route in the topology model in the network environment, wherein a break for a given route is a break in one or more of the physical connections that causes traffic to be diverted onto the given route from one or more other routes affected by the break, and wherein the extreme-case break for the given route is a particular break for which an objective function characterizing one or more route performance metrics is optimized; and generating, for each route, a prediction of extreme-case traffic load on the respective route given the extreme-case break for the respective route according to the collected historical traffic load data for the routes and the topology model.