Adaptive private network with dynamic conduit process

A method for growing communication capacity in the presence of multiple site pairs contending for dynamic conduit resources, the method comprising:

• determining to create a dynamic conduit between two sites by a site that is intermediate between the two sites, wherein the intermediate site tracks local wide area network (WAN) link (LWL) usages associated with multiple site pairs including the two sites, wherein the intermediate site performs WAN-to-WAN forwarding between the two sites over LWLs between the intermediate site and each of the two sites and determines that one of the LWLs is congested or that traffic usage on one of the LWLs exceeds a threshold;
• transferring, by the intermediate site, those LWLs associated with the two sites that are most congested among the multiple site pairs to a dynamic conduit between the two sites to enable the site pairs to communicate directly over the dynamic conduit, wherein transferring the LWLs associated with the two sites that are most congested includes sending, by the intermediate site, a message to each of the two sites that are most congested to trigger creation of the dynamic conduit;
• creating, by the two sites, the dynamic conduit;
• initiating a grow state on the dynamic conduit by setting a flow limit to an initial value and transferring bulk data flows, originally communicated through the intermediate site, directly across the dynamic conduit;
• while in the grow state, increasing the number of flows to the dynamic conduit such that the number of flows using the dynamic conduit is less than or equal to the flow limit and iteratively increasing the flow limit of the dynamic conduit, where each of the number of flows is a stream of traffic identified by a unique source Internet protocol (IP) address, destination IP address, protocol, and source and destination port numbers;
• determining whether the flow limit reaches a predetermined value in a predetermined number of the sampling cycles;
• and
• in response to determining that the flow limit reaches the predetermined value in the predetermined number of the sampling cycles, changing from the grow state to a client use state.

A non-transitory computer readable medium having stored thereon executable instructions that when executed by a processor of a computer control the computer to perform steps comprising:

• changing a two hop communication pattern between a site A, an intermediate site, and a site B to a dynamic conduit with a one hop communication pattern between the site A and the site B without use of the intermediate site, wherein the intermediate site performs wide area network (WAN)-to-WAN forwarding between site A and site B over a first local WAN link (LWL) between site A and the intermediate site and a second LWL between site B and the intermediate site and changing the two-hop communication pattern to a one-hop communication pattern includes:
• monitoring, by the intermediate site, throughput statistics between site A and site B over the first and second LWLs;
• determining that one of the LWLs is congested or that traffic usage on one of the LWLs exceeds a threshold;
• and
• in response to determining that one of the LWLs is congested or that traffic usage on one of the LWLs exceeds the threshold, sending a message to site A and site B to trigger creation of the dynamic conduit;
• initiating a grow state on the dynamic conduit by setting a flow limit to an initial value and transferring bulk data flows, originally communicated through the intermediate site, directly across the dynamic conduit between site A and site B;
• while in the grow state, increasing the number of flows to the dynamic conduit such that the number of flows using the dynamic conduit is less than or equal to the flow limit and iteratively increasing the flow limit of the dynamic conduit, where each of the number of flows is a stream of traffic identified by a unique source Internet protocol (IP) address, destination IP address, protocol, and source and destination port numbers;
• wherein iteratively increasing the flow limit includes increasing the flow limit by a pre-specified amount each sampling cycle upon a determination that the bulk data flows transferred with minimum errors during each sampling cycle;
• determining whether the flow limit reaches a predetermined value in a predetermined number of the sampling cycles;
• and
• in response to determining that the flow limit reaches the predetermined value in the predetermined number of the sampling cycles, changing from the grow state to a client use state.