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US 10,122,609 B2Granted
Data capture
AssigneeBAE SYSTEMS plc
InventorGordon Campbell Friend
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An apparatus and method are provided for capturing dynamically selectable data streams from a communications network substantially at network line rates and for routing packets in selected data streams to one or more pre-assigned outputs by means of multiple selectable data processing queues.
Claims9
A data probe, comprising:
- an input for receiving data packets;
- a plurality of outputs for outputting received data packets;
- a protocol finder for selecting received data packets containing indications of a predetermined protocol;
- a data extractor device for reading from each selected packet a predetermined combination of data items;
- a routing table containing, for each in a predetermined range of values, a destination identifier indicative of one of said plurality of outputs or a value to indicate that a data packet is not to be routed;
- a look-up device for calculating, using a predetermined function, a value within said predetermined range of values from the predetermined combination of data items, read from a selected data packet and for determining, with reference to the routing table, a corresponding destination identifier;
- a plurality of data processing queues linked to said plurality of outputs, arranged to receive a selected data packet and a corresponding destination identifier from the look-up device and to route the data packet to one of said plurality of outputs, as defined by the corresponding destination identifier, by means of a selected one of said plurality of data processing queues;
- and
- a queue manager for applying one or more queue management algorithms when selecting a data processing queue for routing a received data packet to one of said plurality of outputs,
- wherein the queue manager is configured to:
- route data packets having the same predetermined combination of data items or the same destination identifier via the same data processing queue;
- and
- in response to a given data processing queue being predicted to reach full capacity within a threshold time period, triggering an amendment to the routing table to change the destination identifier corresponding to said calculated value thereby to:
- allocate a further queue to data packets having the same predetermined combination of data items or the same destination identifier;
- or
- terminate the capture of said packets.
13 more elements
A method for distributing received data packets to a plurality of outputs, comprising the steps:
- (i) extracting a characterising set of data from a received data packet;
- (ii) applying a predetermined function to calculate a value within a predetermined value range from the extracted set of data;
- (iii) reading, from a routing table containing a configurable mapping between values in said predetermined range and respective destination identifiers each defining one of a plurality of outputs, a destination identifier corresponding to said calculated value;
- (iv) routing the received data packet to an output defined by the corresponding destination identifier via one of a plurality of data processing queues, wherein data packets having the same calculated value are routed via the same data processing queue;
- and
- (v) receiving an indication that a given queue is predicted to reach full capacity within a threshold time period, and, in dependence thereon, triggering an amendment to the routing table to change the destination identifier corresponding to said calculated value thereby to:
- direct further data packets having the same characterizing set of data to a different output or via a different data processing queue;
- or
- store a predetermined destination identifier indicating that data packets carrying the same characterizing set of data are no longer to be routed to one of said plurality of outputs.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.