Method and apparatus for true priority based connection establishment within a PNNI ATM network

A machine readable medium having stored thereon sequences of instructions, which, when executed by a digital processing system cause said digital processing system to:

• a) update an understanding of an ATM PNNI network after reception of PTSE information, said PTSE information including a first field bundled with a System Capabilities Information Group (SIG) field, the first field describing a bit rate service category of a link in the network, the SIG field describing bandwidth allocations made to specific priority levels of the bit rate service category of the link;
• b) determine a path through said network for a requested connection, said path determined in light of said updated understanding, said requested connection having a priority level, wherein said determined path results in one or more connections being dropped in order to allow bandwidth for said requested connection, each of said dropped connections having a lower priority level than said priority level of said requested connection.

A network node to operate as part of a network, comprising:

• means for receiving PTSE information from a plurality of other nodes in the network, the PTSE information including a first field bundled with a System Capabilities Information Group (SIG) field, the first field describing a bit rate service category of a link in the network, the SIG field describing bandwidth allocations made to specific priority levels of the bit rate service category of the link;
• and
• means for determining a path through the network for a requested connection, using the received PTSE information, the requested connection having a priority level, wherein determining the path results in one or more connections being dropped to allow bandwidth for the requested connection, each of the dropped connections having a lower priority level than that of the requested connection.

A networking node to operate as part of a network, comprising:

• a processing core to execute a software program to enable the networking node to (1) access PTSE information received by the networking node from another node in the network, the PTSE information including a first field bundled with a System Capabilities Information Group (SIG) field, the first field describing a bit rate service category of a link in the network, the SIG field describing bandwidth allocations made to specific priority levels of the bit rate service category of the link, and (2) determine a path through the network for a requested connection, using the received PTSE information, the requested connection having a priority level, wherein determining the path results in one or more connections being dropped to allow bandwidth for the requested connection, each of the dropped connections having a lower priority level than that of the requested connection.