Supporting effectiveness of applications in a network environment

• US 20070206506A1
• Filed: 03/03/2006
• Published: 09/06/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 03/03/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Original Assignee: The Boeing Co.
• Inventors: Purpura, William
• Granted Patent: US 7,929,542 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/00 Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
• 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

Abstract

A method of managing resources in a network. For each application executing on a host device, data transfer requirements are determined based on a capability level currently acceptable for the application. Methods of data transfer currently available to the host device for applying toward the data transfer requirements of the applications are determined. The method includes arbitrating allocation of network resources to a gateway and allocation of resources of the gateway to the host device based on probability of application effectiveness and network bandwidth management priorities, and arbitrating allocation of host device resources to the applications based on current acceptable capability level and probability of application effectiveness.

Claims

1. A network comprising:

a gateway node configured to control access to the network;

a host device of the network;

one or more applications configured to execute on the host device;

a first module of the host device configured to determine data transfer requirements for a given one of the one or more applications at a current capability level acceptable for the given application;

a second module of the host device configured to negotiate with the first module for allocation of resources of the host device to the given application; and

a module of the gateway node configured to negotiate with the second module for allocation of network resources to the host device;

the modules further configured to perform the negotiating until, based on a probability of effectiveness of the given application at the current acceptable capability level, the given application is provided with network resources to satisfy data transfer requirements of the given application at the current or another acceptable capability level.

2. The network of claim 1, wherein the probability of effectiveness is dynamically assigned to the application via the network.

3. The network of claim 1, wherein the data transfer requirements comprise transfer rate, data format and data quality requirements.

4. The network of claim 1, wherein the gateway node module is configured to negotiate based on bandwidth priorities of the network.

5. The network of claim 1, wherein the other acceptable current capability level is determined based on capability level degradation priority.

6. The network of claim 1, wherein a node that includes the host device is an ad-hoc node.

7. A method of managing resources in a network, comprising:

for each of one or more applications executing on a host device of the network, determining data transfer requirements for the application based on a capability level currently acceptable for the application;

determining resources of the network currently available to the host device for applying toward the data transfer requirements, the determining performed at least in part by arbitrating allocation of resources of the network through a network gateway to the host device based on network bandwidth priority and one or more probabilities of effectiveness of the one or more applications; and

arbitrating allocation of host device resources to the one of more applications based on one or more current acceptable capability levels and one or more probabilities of effectiveness of the one or more applications.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein arbitrating allocation of host device resources is further based on degradation priorities of the one or more applications.

9. The method of claim 7, wherein the application data transfer requirements include transfer rate data format, and data quality requirements.

10. The method of claim 7, further comprising, based on the arbitrating, determining data transfer requirements for one of the one or more applications based on another capability level for the application.

11. An architecture for resource management in a network including one or more gateway nodes configured to control access to the network and a plurality of nodes including one or more host devices, the architecture comprising:

a first module residing on a given one of the one or more host devices and configured to;

determine a current capability level for each of one or more applications executing on the given host device;

determine data transfer requirements of the one or more applications based on the one or more current capability levels; and

arbitrate allocation of resources of the given host device to the one or more applications based on the one or more current capability levels and one or more probabilities of effectiveness and degradation priorities of the one or more applications;

a second module residing on the given host device and configured to negotiate allocation of resources from a given one of the one or more gateway nodes to the given host device; and

a third module residing on the given gateway node and configured to arbitrate allocation of network data transfer resources to one or more host devices, including the given host device, based on priorities of probability of effectiveness and bandwidth management.

12. The architecture of claim 11, wherein at least one of the one or more applications is configured to accept a capability level different from its current capability level.