Tri-colour data packet counting for tri-colour marking policies
AssigneeAlcatel Lucent
InventorJoseph F. Olakangil
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Abstract
The invention is directed to counting data packets marked according to tri-color marking techniques. Packets of a packet flow that are marked according to a three color (or tri-color) marking scheme are counted using a counter implemented on a ternary content addressable memory (TCAM). Advantages of some embodiments of the invention are to enable the use of generic and cost-efficient TCAMs to quickly obtain the counts of all three colors of packets in such a packet flow. These counts can be used to provide detailed statistics on characteristics of the packet flow, which can be useful for debugging and accounting purposes.
Claims11
A method of counting packets of a data packet flow marked according to a tri-color marking scheme, comprising the steps of:
- receiving a packet of the flow;
- determining whether the flow matches a srTCM flow policy;
- determining an identifier for the flow;
- determining a marked color of the received packet;
- incrementing a first counter at a first ternary content-addressable memory (TCAM) entry corresponding to the identifier responsive to the marked color being a first color of said tri-color marking scheme;
- incrementing a second counter at the first TCAM entry corresponding to the identifier responsive to the marked color being a second color of said tri-color marking scheme;
- and
- incrementing a third counter at a second TCAM entry corresponding to the identifier.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.