Adaptive, application-aware selection of differntiated network services

A system facilitating the management of network traffic transmitted over a plurality of differentiated services networks, each differentiated services network supporting one or more classes of service, comprising

• an application traffic management device comprising
• a packet processor operative to
• detect data flows in network traffic traversing a communications path, the data flows each comprising at least one packet;
• a traffic classification engine operative to identify one or more network applications in data flows traversing the apparatus,
• a network performance monitoring module operative to monitor the performance of the one or more classes of service supported by the differentiated services networks;
• and,
• a class of service (CoS) selector operative to
• compute, for at least one of the network applications, fitness values for the one or more classes of service based on the respective minimum acceptable performance parameters associated with corresponding network applications and the monitored performance of the one or more classes of service supported by the differentiated services network,
• select a differentiated services network from the plurality of differentiated services networks and a class of service from the one or more classes of service supported by the selected differentiated services network for a given data flow based on the identified network application, and a comparison between the fitness values for each of the classes of service corresponding to the identified network application, and
• wherein the application traffic management device is operative to mark the packets of data flows corresponding to the given network application with a mark corresponding to the selected differentiated services network and the selected class of service;
• and
• a router operatively connected to the plurality of differentiated services networks, the router operative to
• receive packets with the mark from by the application traffic management device;
• map the mark to a first differentiated services network from the plurality of differentiated services networks and the class or service from the one or more classes of service supported by the first differentiated services network.

A method, comprising

• detecting, at a network device connected to a communications path, data flows in network traffic traversing the communications path, the data flows each comprising at least one packet, and wherein the communications path comprises a differentiated services network supporting one or more classes of service;
• identifying one or more network applications in the data flows traversing the communications path,
• monitoring the performance of the differentiated services network relative to one or more classes of service supported by the differentiated services network;
• and,
• computing, for at least one of the network applications, fitness values for the one or more classes of service based on the respective minimum acceptable performance parameters associated with corresponding network applications and the monitored performance of the one or more classes of service supported by the differentiated services network,
• selecting a class of service from the one or more classes of service for a given data flow based on the identified network application, and a comparison between the fitness values for each of the classes of service corresponding to the identified network application and
• marking the packets of the data flows corresponding to the given network application with the selected class of service for transmission over the differentiated services network.