US 2011/0235509 A1 · METHOD TO ACHIEVE BOUNDED BUFFER SIZES AND QUALITY OF SERVICE GUARANTEES IN THE INTERNET NETWORK

Abstract

Methods to achieve bounded router buffer sizes and Quality of Service guarantees for traffic flows in a packet-switched network are described. The network can be an Internet Protocol (IP) network, a Differentiated Services network, an MPLS network, wireless mesh network or an optical network. The routers can use input queueing, possibly in combination with crosspoint queueing and/or output queueing. Routers may schedule QoS-enabled traffic flows to ensure a bounded normalized service lead/lag. Each QoS-enabled traffic flow will buffer O(K) packets per router, where K is an integer bound on the normalized service lead/lag. Three flow-scheduling methods are analysed. Non-work-conserving flow-scheduling methods can guarantee a bound on the normalized service lead/lag, while work-conserving flow-scheduling methods typically cannot guarantee the same small bound. The amount of buffering required in a router can be reduced significantly, the network links can operate near peak capacity, and strict QoS guarantees can be achieved.

Claims12

Dependent claims

A method for achieving bounded buffer sizes in a packet-switched network for a provisioned application-layer traffic flow, comprising:

a packet-switched network comprising routers and links, said routers comprising switches and buffers to hold packets,
a router scheduling method for scheduling packets through said routers,
said provisioned traffic flow routed over at least one path through the network,
one or more Application-Specific Traffic-Shaper modules associated with said provisioned application-layer traffic flow at the source node, said Traffic-Shaper modules shaping said provisioned application-layer traffic flows and transmitting network-layer packets into the network with a bounded normalized service lead/lag,
one or more Application-Specific Playback-Queue modules associated with said provisioned application-layer traffic flow at the destination node, said Playback-Queue modules reconstructing the provisioned application-layer packets from the network-layer packets received from the network,
said router scheduling method scheduling said network-layer packets associated with said provisioned traffic flow through at least one of said routers to depart said router with a bounded normalized service lead/lag.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Method to achieve bounded buffer sizes and quality of service guarantees in the internet network

Life of this patent

Method to achieve bounded buffer sizes and quality of service guarantees in the internet network

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims12