Method for network capacity planning with proper accounting of spare capacity

Abstract

An apparatus and method for introducing new factors to properly account for the benefits of carrying an appropriate amount of capacity in a communication network. The present invention defines a variable that represents the benefit of the spare capacity of a link. The notion of benefit is similar to the notion of a negative cost of link augments.

Description

[0001]This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10 / 750,314, filed Dec. 31, 2003 (currently allowed) which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 60 / 486,497 filed on Jul. 11, 2003, which is herein incorporated by reference.[0002]The present invention relates generally to communication networks and, more particularly, to a method for capacity planning with proper accounting of spare capacity.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]In traditional capacity planning methods, there is usually little spare capacity left in the network after each capacity planning horizon is executed. This is due to the fact that spare capacity shows up simply as cost and costs are being minimized in traditional capacity planning methods. Therefore, a network could run out of capacity in places soon after the current planning time horizon is over. This further leads to the needs to augment many of the network links in the very near future. Thus, such capacity planning m...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0005]In one embodiment, the present invention improves upon the traditional capacity planning methods by introducing new factors in the optimization methods to properly account for the benefits of carrying the appropriate amount of capacity in the network. For example, the present invention defines a variable that represents the benefit of the spare capacity of a link. The notion of benefit is similar to the notion of a negative cost (of link augments). In this fashion, a new objective function is created that no longer simply minimizes the cost of all the capacity augments but instead accounts for the benefit of the spare capacity left in the network as well.

Problems solved by technology

In traditional capacity planning methods, there is usually little spare capacity left in the network after each capacity planning horizon is executed.

However, since additional capacity will eventually be added on all the links, these circuits with unnecessarily long routes will then show up as misrouted circuits and will need to be re-groomed.

This involves extra operations cost as well as a hit, a brief service interruption, to the circuit.

Furthermore, it also requires getting a customer's permission before a circuit can be re-groomed, which is a very time-consuming manual process.

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