Method for supporting traffic analysis in an atm (asynchronous transfer mode) network

A method for supporting traffic analysis in an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network, in which a transmission procedure is based on asynchronous time division multiplexing using fixed-length data packets or cells, the method comprising:

• using in combination a data accumulator means and a chronometer scheduling means for scheduling traffic channels to be analyzed,
• said data accumulator means comprising a channel data table which is continuously updated by traffic data to be analyzed,
• said chronometer scheduling means comprising a scheduler table which is continuously and sequentially selecting a next traffic analysis job to be executed,
• wherein scheduling of traffic analysis of a certain channel is effected when an updated channel address of said channel data table of said data accumulator means corresponds with a valid channel address in said scheduler table of said chronometer scheduling means;
• in connection with said data accumulator means, using a cell extractor means for extracting ATM cells from an incoming traffic cell stream of an ATM link and passing extracted cells on to a cell-to-channel look-up means and to a channel accumulator means,
• using said cell-to-channel look-up means to find the channel address for a cell and to pass this on to said channel accumulator means,
• using said channel accumulator means to update a channel data field of a channel data table row identified by said channel address,
• using said chronometer scheduling means to allow scheduling of traffic analysis jobs for every channel at fixed and small time units by using a time indicator or time pointer,
• setting a first channel for traffic analysis scheduling by inspecting a current time pointer value to find an associated time interval relation to uniquely identify a row of said channel scheduler table,
• setting a channel address field of said row of said channel scheduler table to the channel address of said first channel to be set for traffic analysis scheduling,
• letting said time pointer progress at said fixed and small time intervals for finding a second relation between a second time interval relation and the associated channel address field of said channel scheduler table for setting a second channel for traffic analysis scheduling, and
• letting scheduling repeatedly occur after each consecutive full time interval.

A method for supporting traffic analysis in an ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network, in which a transmission procedure is based on asynchronous time division multiplexing using fixed-length data packets or cells, the method comprising:

• using in combination a data accumulator means and a chronometer scheduling means for scheduling traffic channels to be analyzed,
• said data accumulator means comprising a channel data table which is continuously updated by traffic data to be analyzed,
• said chronometer scheduling means comprising a scheduler table which is continuously and sequentially selecting a next traffic analysis job to be executed,
• wherein scheduling of traffic analysis of a certain channel is effected when an updated channel address of said channel data table of said data accumulator means corresponds with a valid channel address in said scheduler table of said chronometer scheduling means;
• and
• the chronometer scheduling means selects the next traffic analysis job to be started, and actual triggering or dispatching of the execution of a selected traffic analysis job is realized by including an extra field in said channel data table, for each row thereof the entry of this field pointing to a code block that represents the analysis job to be performed for a specific channel.