The SATME method and system estimates source-to-destination traffic
matrices using a simulated annealing algorithm, the traffic matrix
estimation being represented as a probability distribution over the set
of all possible matrices that satisfy a set of given constraints. The
constraints explicitly encode information that the user knows about the
network traffic as components of an objective function (a fitness
function), that is then minimized using simulated annealing. With the
method according to the invention, arbitrary constraints of any form can
be included, and the case where there are no feasible solutions can be
diagnosed by the objective function not converging to zero.