Application aware traffic shaping service node positioned between the access and core networks

• US 20060233100A1
• Filed: 04/13/2005
• Published: 10/19/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 04/13/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Tellabs Communications Canada Ltd. (Infinera Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Zeugma Systems Canada, Inc.
• Inventors: Luft, Siegfried Johannes, Chiang, Ping
• Granted Patent: US 7,606,147 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/229
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0213 Standardised network management protocols, e.g. simple network management protocol [SNMP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/046 comprising network management agents or mobile agents therefor
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0896 Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5019 Ensuring fulfilment of SLA
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5022 by giving priorities, e.g. assigning classes of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5087 wherein the managed service relates to voice services management of VoIP services H04M7/0081
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/11 Identifying congestion
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/20 Traffic policing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/22 Traffic shaping
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2441 relying on flow classification, e.g. using integrated services [IntServ]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2475 for supporting traffic characterised by the type of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/32 by discarding or delaying data units, e.g. packets or frames
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 92/02 Inter-networking arrangements

Abstract

A method and apparatus for an application aware traffic shaping service node positioned between the access and core networks is described. One embodiment of the invention enforces a per subscriber, per application traffic policy for network traffic between one or more subscribers communicatively connected through an access network and a set of one or more service providers communicatively connected through a core network. According to another embodiment of the invention enforcement of the per subscriber, per application traffic policy comprises classifying the network traffic into application level subscriber flows, maintaining real-time statistics on the application level subscriber flows and overall network element congestion, updating, in real-time, the per subscriber, per application traffic policy based on the real-time statistics and restricting bandwidth and dropping packets on the application level subscriber flows as necessary to enforce the per subscriber, per application traffic policy. Another embodiment of the invention is a passthrough mode where the data traffic is transmitted by the traffic in the same manner as received by the traffic shaping service node. Yet another embodiment of the invention is a combined service node with integral edge routing and traffic aggregator.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

enforcing a per subscriber, per application traffic policy on network traffic between a set of one or more subscribers communicatively coupled through an access network and a set of one or more services communicatively coupled through a core network by,

classifying the network traffic into application level subscriber flows;

maintaining real-time statistics on the application level subscriber flows and overall network element congestion;

updating, in real-time, the per subscriber, per application traffic policy based on the real-time statistics; and

restricting bandwidth and dropping packets on the application level subscriber flows as necessary to enforce the per subscriber, per application traffic policy.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the classifying the network traffic comprises deep packet inspection.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the classifying the network traffic comprises identifying an instance of an application.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the classifying the network traffic comprises querying the packet to determine if the packet is associated with an application control program.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein maintaining real-time statistics comprises gathering statistics selected from the group consisting of network statistics, long-term subscriber statistics, short-term subscriber statistics and application statistics.

6. An apparatus comprising:

a subscriber application level traffic shaping network device including,

a first set of one or more interface to couple to an access network through which a plurality of subscribers are communicatively coupled;

a second set of one or more interfaces to couple to a core network through which a plurality of service providers are communicatively coupled;

a classifying module to classify network traffic between the access and the core networks into application level subscriber flows;

a statistics modules to maintain real-time statistics on the application level subscriber flows and overall network element congestion;

a policy module to update the per subscriber, per application traffic policy based on the real-time statistics; and

a set of one or more modules to enforce the per subscriber, per application traffic policy by restricting bandwidth and dropping packets on the application level subscriber flows.

7. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the classifying module further comprises deep packet inspection on the network traffic.

8. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the classifying module further comprises identifying an instance of an application of the network traffic.

9. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the classifying module further comprises querying a packet to determine if the packet is associated with an application control program.

10. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the statistics module further comprises gathering statistics selected from the group consisting of network statistics, long-term subscriber statistics, short-term subscriber statistics and application statistics.

11. The apparatus of claim 6, wherein the subscriber application level traffic shaping network device is non-routing.

12. A method comprising:

receiving a plurality of data packets from a core data network, wherein the core network communicates data network traffic from a plurality of service providers;

generating a data network traffic policy in real-time derived from a set of statistics based on the plurality of data packets; and

transmitting the plurality of data packets according to the traffic policy to an access network, wherein the access network aggregates data network traffic from a plurality of subscribers.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising:

receiving a plurality of subscriber data packets from the access data network

generating a data network traffic policy in real-time derived from a set of statistics based on the plurality of subscriber data packets; and

transmitting the plurality of subscriber data packets according to the traffic policy to the core network.

14. An apparatus comprising:

a subscriber application level traffic shaping network device including,

a first set of one or more interface to couple to an access network through which a plurality of subscribers are communicatively coupled;

a second set of one or more interfaces to couple to a core network through which a plurality of service providers are communicatively coupled;

a backplane communicatively connecting a first and a second interface from the first of set of one or more interfaces with a first interface from the second set of one or more interfaces; and

a passthrough module to divert a flow of a plurality of data packets between the first interface from the first of set of one or more interfaces and the first interface of from the second of set of one or more interfaces to the second interface from the first of set of one or more interfaces and the first interface of from the second of set of one or more interfaces.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the subscriber application level traffic shaping network device is non-routing.

16. An apparatus comprising:

a network device to be coupled between a core router and an edge router, said network device including,

a plurality of line cards each to be coupled to either said edge router or said core router, each of said plurality of line card including a network processor to perform deep packet inspection on a plurality of packets coming into the network device and to enforce current per-subscriber, per-application polices on packets exiting the network device;

a backplane coupled to the plurality of line cards; and

a plurality of processor cards coupled to said backplane, each of said plurality of processor cards including a plurality of processors to receive per-subscriber, per application level flow statistics from the deep packet inspection and to generate the current per-subscriber, per-application policies.

17. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the network device is non-routing.

18. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the per-subscriber, per-application flow statistics are also per instance.

19. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein said network device includes a passthrough mode that passes packets between said core router and said edge router as if said network device was not present.

20. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the plurality of packets coming into the network device are in a disorderly flow and the plurality of packets exiting the network device are in an orderly flow.

21. The apparatus of claim 16, wherein the ratio of processing power of the processor cards to the throughput of the line cards is at least 960 Dhrystone million instructions per second (MIPS) to one gigabit per second (Gbps).

22. A network comprising:

a core router;

an edge router;

a remote access policy server; and

a non-routing network device coupled to said remote access policy server to receive subscriber and application policies and coupled between the core router and the edge router to perform deep packet inspection quality of service processing to generate and enforce real-tine per subscriber, per-application policies.

23. A network comprising:

a core router;

an access network;

a remote access policy server; and

an integrated edge router/traffic aggregator and traffic shaping service node coupled to said remote access policy service to receive subscriber and application policy and coupled between the core router and the access network to perform deep packet inspection quality of service processing to generate and enforce real-time per subscribing per-application policies.