Soft constrained shortest-path tunneling

A device comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a non-transitory memory;
• and
• one or more programs stored in the non-transitory, which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the device to:
• obtain a request to route traffic from a source to a destination in a network, wherein the request is associated with a setup bandwidth criterion;
• identify a plurality of candidate tunnel paths from the source to the destination;
• determine a congestion metric for each of the plurality of candidate tunnel paths to yield a plurality of congestion metrics including a lowest congestion metric;
• determine if the lowest congestion metric is for a single candidate tunnel path of the plurality of candidate tunnel paths or is for two or more candidate tunnel paths of the plurality of candidate tunnel paths;
• and
• instantiate a tunnel from the source to the destination based on whether the lowest congestion metric is for the single candidate tunnel path or the two or more candidate tunnel paths.

A non-transitory memory storing one or more programs with instructions, which when executed by one or more processors of a device, cause the device to:

• obtain a request to route traffic from a source to a destination in a network, wherein the request is associated with a setup bandwidth criterion;
• identify a plurality of candidate tunnel paths from the source to the destination;
• determine a congestion metric for each of the plurality of candidate tunnel paths to yield a plurality of congestion metrics including a lowest congestion metric;
• determine if the lowest congestion metric is for a single candidate tunnel path of the plurality of candidate tunnel paths or is for two or more candidate tunnel paths of the plurality of candidate tunnel paths;
• and
• instantiate a tunnel from the source to the destination based on whether the lowest congestion metric is for the single candidate tunnel path or the two or more candidate tunnel paths.