Provisional IP-aware virtual paths over networks

A method for identifying Internet Protocol (IP) packets in a switch designed for use with an Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) protocol comprising:

• identifying an IP packet by reading a bit in an ATM header of an ATM cell;
• detecting an IP header of the IP packet in a next ATM cell;
• determining whether the IP packet is a user data protocol (UDP) packet or a transmission control protocol (TCP) packet;
• determining whether to drop or transmit the IP packet based on whether the IP packet is a UDP or TCP packet by tracking the number of packets that arrive at the switch, and dropping a TCP packet based on the tracked number;
• classifying the IP packet into one of a plurality of quality of service (QoS) classes to provide an appropriate level of QOS;
• and
• forwarding the IP packet in accordance with the appropriate level of QoS.

An apparatus comprising:

• a network interface to receive a plurality of packets from a network;
• a processor and logic executable thereon to provide a protocol architecture for processing the received packets, the protocol architecture including
• a queuing layer to identify packets formatted in accordance with an Internet Protocol (IP) and to determine whether to transmit or drop each packet;
• a classification layer to classify the identified packets for Quality of Service (QoS) and to determine to which of a plurality of queues the packets belong;
• a scheduling layer to allocate link bandwidth to the plurality of queues;
• a protection layer to select the next appropriate link for packet transmission based on information about faults in the network;
• and
• a control plane to perform provisioning and to monitor each layer.