Reducing TE-LSP setup time by minimizing blockage with the use of pre-reservations during the path computation process

A traffic engineered label switched path (TE-LSP) is usually deployed on an optimally computed path. In complex network scenarios, or when external nodes like path computation elements (PCEs) are solicited in a distributed manner, the already resource hungry task of optimal path computation could take a considerable amount of time during which network resources may fluctuate. This could result in blockage during the signaling of TE-LSPs. Given that a low setup time is often a requirement for TE-LSPs, the risk of blockage needs to be minimized. We propose a pre-reservation based solution applied to the case of inter-domain path computation. Simulation results on a real world network topology show that our method allows for better TE-LSP setup times. The results also show that our method does not deteriorate the overall network utilization.