Determining and provisioning paths within a network of communication elements

A method for creating a graph of a network used for network routing, said network comprising network elements and network links, said method comprising the steps of:

• determining for each network element an associated routing model, wherein a routing model indicates how ingress and egress ports of the network element can be interconnected among themselves and other network elements;
• based on the determined routing model, determining for each network element whether the element should be associated with a plurality of network elements and represented collectively as a routing node, wherein a routing node is such that the any ingress edge ports and any egress edge ports of the network element or network elements associated with the routing node can be interconnected;
• if the network element should be associated with a plurality of network elements, determining if a routing node has been created for the plurality of network elements, and if not, creating a new routing node;
• if the network element should not be associated with a plurality of network elements, determining, based on the routing model, whether the network element should be represented as one routing node or a plurality of routing nodes, and creating the one or the plurality of routing nodes;
• representing each network link as a routing link, wherein a routing link interconnects routing nodes;
• and
• associating each routing link with two routing nodes, thereby creating the graph of the network, wherein the two associated routing nodes represent the two network elements interconnected by the network link represented by the routing link.

A method for determining a path between points within a network, said network comprising a plurality of elements and a plurality of network links, said method comprising the steps of:

• modeling the plurality of elements as one or more routing nodes wherein each routing node represents part of an element or a set of one or more elements, each routing node having the characteristic that any edge ingress and egress ports of the network element or network elements associated with the routing node can be interconnected;
• modeling each physical link as a routing link, wherein routing links interconnect routing nodes;
• and
• determining the path by determining a set of routing nodes and routing links that interconnect the points.