Dynamic virtual private network (VPN) tunnel quality of service (QoS) treatment

Abstract

Dynamic Quality of Service (QoS) treatment of traffic within a secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) tunnel is provided by attaching a QoS marker to data traffic at an ingress end of the VPN tunnel. The QoS marker is obtained by querying a policy database. The policy database returns QoS information, from which the QoS marker is derived. The policy data base can be queried by a VPN Gateway at an ingress end of the tunnel during tunnel setup, and/or at any time following tunnel setup to obtain updated QoS information. This updated QoS information is then propagated through the VPN tunnel to a VPN gateway at the opposite end of the VPN Tunnel, so that it can be used for egress processing of the tunnel. traffic without renegotiating the Security Association. Consequently, re-establishment of the tunnel is not required in order to change the QoS treatment of tunnel traffic.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.