Application of the minimum-weight spanning-tree algorithm to assignment of communication facilities

COSMOS — the Computer System for Main Frame Operations — is an operational support system that inventories and assigns central office facilities to serve customer circuits. As part of this assignment responsibility, COSMOS must provide the central office personnel who will physically connect the circuit not only with information about the facilities to be connected, but also the order in which they will be connected (i.e., connection sequence or “connectivity”). Also, COSMOS must determine the circuit connectivity to permit automatic assignment of tie pairs — inter- and intra-frame cables that permit the connection of facilities that are widely separated physically. A new algorithm has been added to COSMOS to permit the determination of connectivity. This algorithm is based on the algorithm that determines the minimum-weight spanning tree of a connected graph. However, the algorithm is specialized for COSMOS by taking into account such factors as minimizing the maximum number of connections at any node and restricting certain nodes to a maximum number of connections.