The article proposes a network parameter-awareness (NPA) method and applies it to routing discovery algorithms in autonomic optical Internet. This NPA method can perceive the main parameters of the network, such as delay, jitter and traffic, which can represent the current situation of the network. And these parameters enable network to determine the appropriate nodes for routing discovery. The simulation results of evaluating performance of a network with NPA method and its routing applications show that the method and its applications in routing improve the performance of the network significantly with quality of service (QoS) guaranteed.