Dynamic virtual groups apparatuses, systems, and methods
AssigneeCalifornia Eastern Laboratories, Inc.
InventorJames Paul Hartman
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A system, apparatus, and method for network traffic management. The method includes establishing a building zone corresponding with a physical space in the building, determining how many networked devices are in the building zone, determining a current multicast use level, establishing a virtual group threshold based on a current portion of a network multicast capacity that is being used, and unicast transmitting a message to a plurality of networked devices in the building zone when the number of networked devices in the building zone is less than the virtual group threshold.
Claims18
A network traffic management device, comprising:
- a network communication device for communicating data to a plurality of remote devices;
- and
- a processor coupled to the network communication device, the processor including instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
- establish a building network zone corresponding with a physical space in a building;
- determine how many networked devices are physically located in the building network zone;
- determine a current number of multicast messages queued for transmission;
- establish a virtual group threshold number of devices physically located in the building network zone based on the current number of multicast messages queued for transmission;
- unicast a message to a plurality of networked devices physically located in the building network zone when the number of networked devices in the building network zone is less than or equal to the virtual group threshold;
- and
- multicast transmit the message to that same plurality of networked devices physically located in the building network zone when the number of networked devices in the building network zone is more than the virtual group threshold.
A network traffic management system, comprising:
- a plurality of actuating network devices in a building zone corresponding with a physical space in a building receiving a message by way of unicast communication transmitted to each of the plurality of actuating network devices when the number of network devices in the building zone is less than or equal to a virtual group threshold, the virtual group threshold determined based on a current number of multicast messages queued for transmission and receiving that message by way of a multicast communication transmitted to each of the plurality of actuating network devices when the number of network devices in the building zone is greater than the virtual group threshold, each of the plurality of network devices comprising:
- a network communication device for receiving data from a remote device;
- and
- a processor coupled to the network communication device, the processor including instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to receive the unicast or multicast message.
A method of network traffic management, comprising:
- establishing a building zone corresponding with a physical space in the building;
- determining how many networked devices are in the building zone;
- determining a current number of multicast messages queued for transmission;
- establishing a virtual group threshold number of devices in the building zone based on a current number of multicast messages queued for transmission;
- unicast transmitting a message to a plurality of networked devices in the building zone when the number of networked devices in the building zone is less than or equal to the virtual group threshold;
- and
- multicast transmitting the message to that same plurality of networked devices in the building zone when the number of networked devices in the building zone is more than the virtual group threshold.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.