Policy-based admission control and bandwidth reservation for future sessions

• US 20050228892A1
• Filed: 01/24/2005
• Published: 10/13/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: CAMIANT, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: CAMIANT, Inc. (Oracle Corporation)
• Inventors: Riley, Yusun Kim, Tandon, Manas, Kalyanasundaram, Pramod
• Granted Patent: US 7,788,357 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/228
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/724 at intermediate nodes, e.g. resource reservation protocol [RSVP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/805 QOS or priority aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/822 Collecting or measuring resource availability data
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/826 Involving periods of time
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/83 based on usage prediction
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/14 Session management for real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/1066
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/60 Scheduling or organising the servicing of application requests, e.g. requests for application data transmissions using the analysis and optimisation of the required network resources admission control or resource allocation H04L47/70
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/62 Establishing a time schedule for servicing the requests

Abstract

A method for delivering content over a network, the method involving: receiving a request to establish a session at a future time T1 over the network, the requested session for transferring content between a content server and a subscriber'"'"'s equipment; reserving network capacity necessary to support the requested future session; acknowledging to the requestor that network resources have been reserved for said requestor for time T1; and when current time reaches time T1, causing the requested session to be set up for transferring content between the content server and the subscriber'"'"'s equipment.

Claims

1. A method for delivering content over a network, said method comprising:

receiving a request to establish a session at a future time T1 over the network, said requested session for transferring content between a content server and a subscriber'"'"'s equipment;

reserving network capacity necessary to support the requested future session;

acknowledging to the requestor that network resources have been reserved for said requestor for time T1; and

when current time reaches time T1, causing the requested session to be set up for transferring content between the content server and the subscriber'"'"'s equipment.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein reserving network capacity further includes determining whether sufficient network capacity will be available at time T1 to support the requested session and wherein reserving network capacity is contingent upon determining that sufficient network capacity does exist.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising keeping track of network capacity that is being set aside for other future sessions.

4. The method of claim 3, further comprising predicting what network capacity resources will be requested at time T1 in the future by other requesters, wherein determining whether sufficient network capacity will be available at time T1 takes into account the predicted network capacity will be requested at time T1 in the future by other requestors.

5. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

maintaining a plurality of queues each of which corresponds to a different priority level; and

determining a priority level for the session that was requested, said priority level for the session being the same as the priority level for one of said plurality of queues, wherein reserving said network capacity involves storing a reservation in a queue corresponding to the priority level of the requested session.

6. The method of claim 5, further comprising polling the plurality of queues in order of their priority levels to identify any stored requests having a reservation time that equals current time and for any stored requests having a reservation time that equals current time, setting up a corresponding requested session on the network for delivering content.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the network over which the content is delivered includes at least a portion that is a cable network.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving a request to establish a session at a future time T1 over the network involves receiving said request via a PCMM protocol.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the content server is a multimedia server.

10. A method of managing delivery of content over a network, said method comprising:

maintaining a plurality of queues, each one associated with a different priority level and each one for storing reservations for future sessions that have associated priorities equal to the priority level of that queue; and

periodically polling the plurality of queues in order of their priority level to identify all requests which are ready to be acted upon.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein polling comprises going through all requests stored in one of the plurality of queues before moving on to another queue.

12. A method for delivering content over a network, said method comprising:

receiving a request to establish a session over a network between a content server and subscriber equipment, said session for transferring content between said content server and said subscriber equipment;

determining that sufficient network capacity is not presently available to support the requested session;

predicting what network capacity will be available after a later time T1; and

if sufficient network capacity is predicted to be available shortly, refraining from rejecting the request.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising waiting until current time reaches T1 and then accepting the request to set up a session between the content server and the subscriber'"'"'s equipment.

14. The method of claim 12, further comprising, when the current time reaches T1, setting up the requested session.

15. The method of claim 12, further comprising notifying the requestor that sufficient network capacity will become available at the later time T1 and offering the requestor an opportunity to cancel the request or permit a delay of at least until time T1 before a response to the request is required.

16. A policy server for managing delivery of content over a network, said policy server comprising:

a processor; and

memory storing program code which when executed on the processor enables the policy server to;

receive a request to establish a session at a future time T1 over the network, said requested session for transferring content between a content server and a subscriber'"'"'s equipment;

reserve network capacity necessary to support the requested future session;

acknowledge to the requestor that network resources have been reserved for said requestor for time T1; and

when current time reaches time T1, cause the requested session to be set up for transferring content between the content server and the subscriber'"'"'s equipment.

17. A policy server for managing delivery of content over a network, said policy server comprising:

a processor; and

memory storing program code which when executed on the processor enables the policy server to;

maintain a plurality of queues in memory, each one associated with a different priority level and each one for storing reservations for future sessions that have associated priorities equal to the priority level of that queue; and

periodically poll the plurality of queues in order of their priority level to identify all requests which are ready to be acted upon.

18. A policy server for managing delivery of content over a network, said policy server comprising:

a processor; and

memory storing program code which when executed on the processor enables the policy server to;

receive a request to establish a session over a network between a content server and subscriber equipment, said session for transferring content between said content server and said subscriber equipment;

determine that sufficient network capacity is not presently available to support the requested session;

predict what network capacity will be available after a later time T1; and

if sufficient network capacity is predicted to be available shortly, refraining from rejecting the request.