Routing packets based on congestion of minimal and non-minimal routes

A non-transitory machine readable storage medium comprising instructions executable by a routing engine of a network device to:

• in response to reception of a packet in the network device, determine all possible candidate routes for the packet to be routed to a destination network device, the candidate routes comprising minimal candidate routes and non-minimal candidate routes;
• assign an adaptive weight to the non-minimal candidate routes wherein the adaptive weight is a function of congestion of the minimal candidate routes and the non-minimal candidate routes;
• and
• route the packet to the destination device using an optimal route among the candidate routes, the optimal route having a lowest estimated latency.

A network device comprising:

• at least one ingress port through which a packet is received;
• at least one egress port through which the packet is forwarded to a destination device;
• and
• a routing engine to:
• determine all possible candidate routes for the packet to be routed to the destination network device, the candidate routes comprising minimal candidate routes and non-minimal candidate routes;
• assign an adaptive weight to the non-minimal candidate routes, wherein the adaptive weight is a function of congestion of the minimal candidate routes and the non-minimal candidate routes;
• and
• route the packet to the destination device using an optimal route among the candidate routes.