Method and apparatus for pre-provisioning networks to support fast restoration with minimum overbuild

An article of manufacture for designing a protection capacity to be reserved in a network, comprising a computer readable storage medium containing one or more programs which when executed implement the steps of:

• obtaining one or more link capacities associated with a network topology, wherein the network is assumed to have no pre-existing working traffic;
• determining a capacity partition for at least one link in the network topology, the capacity partition comprising a working capacity portion and a protection capacity portion, the protection capacity portion being reserved for rerouting working traffic upon a failure, the capacity partition determination step further comprising the step of initially generating a spanning tree by considering one or more links of the network topology in decreasing order of link capacity and selectively adding the one or more links to the spanning tree to form an acyclic graph, wherein the capacity partition determination step enables control over the number of backup tunnels associated with the at least one link, on which working traffic can be rerouted, and further wherein the capacity partition determination step provides for a link based local failure restoration and a minimal protection capacity.