Per priority TCP quality of service
AssigneeBrocade Communications Systems, Inc.
InventorsMark S. Detrick, Robert Grant Engebretson, Senthilkumar Narayanasamy, Benjamin Patrick Hart
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An IP gateway device establishes distinct TCP sessions within a single FCIP tunnel, each TCP session being designated for a different priority of service (e.g., high, medium, low), plus a control stream. Each TCP session has its own TCP stack and its own settings for VLAN Tagging (IEEE 802.1Q), quality of service (IEEE 802.1P) and Differentiated Services Code Point (DSCP). By distributing data streams assigned to different priorities of service into different TCP sessions within the FCIP tunnel, an IP gateway device can preserve the distinctions between the data stream priorities while the data traffic is within the IP network.
Claims30
A method comprising:
- initiating creation of a tunnel over an Internet Protocol (IP) network;
- initiating creation of a TCP trunk containing two or more Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) circuits in the tunnel;
- and
- initiating creation, in each of the FCIP circuits, of at least two Transport Control Protocol (TCP) sessions for data transmission through the tunnel, wherein data having a first priority of service is designated for transmission over a first of the TCP sessions and data having a second priority of service is designated for transmission over a second of the TCP sessions.
An Internet Protocol (IP) device comprising:
- a Fibre Channel (FC) port for receiving FC frames;
- a tunnel manager coupled to the FC port for initiating creation of a tunnel and for initiating creation of a TCP trunk containing two or more Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) circuits in the tunnel;
- and
- an Ethernet port for receiving the FC frames, the Ethernet port being coupled to the tunnel manager and FC port and including an Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) interface configured to initiate creation, in each of the FCIP circuits, of two or more Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) sessions and to designate data having a first priority of service for transmission over a first of the TCP sessions and data having a second priority of service for transmission over a second of the TCP sessions.
A system comprising:
- a first Internet Protocol (IP) device configured to receive Fibre Channel (FC) frames;
- and
- a second IP device coupled to the first IP device over an IP network, wherein the first IP device is configured to initiate creation of a tunnel over the IP network between the first IP device and the second IP device, to initiate creation of a TCP trunk containing two or more Fibre Channel over IP (FCIP) circuits in the tunnel, and to initiate creation of two or more (Transport Control Protocol) TCP sessions in each of the FCIP circuits, at least two of the TCP sessions in each of the FCIP circuits being designated for data streams having different priorities of service.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.