DOMAIN AGGREGATION FOR INTER-DOMAIN PATH COMPUTATION IN HYBRID PCE ARCHITECTURES

摘要

The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for inter-domain path computation in a computer network comprised of domains. The invention solves the scalability problem of prior art by reducing the number of domains that a parent network controller in a hierarchical PCE architecture (h-PCE) has to manage in order to determine a path for a data packet from one node to another in the computer network. The main idea consists in forming clusters of domains in order to reduce communication overhead between parent and child network controller and offloading portions of the computation to the CNCs. The main advantages of the invention lie in reducing complexity of communication network, in providing relief for the signaling bottleneck between Parent and Children network controllers and in optimally solving the inter-domain path computation problem by using clusters.