COMMUNICATION CONTROL SYSTEM

• US 20070258440A1
• Filed: 07/18/2007
• Published: 11/08/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 02/21/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Original Assignee: Fujitsu Limited
• Inventors: WATANABE, Naotoshi
• Granted Patent: US 7,710,877 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/352
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/00 Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/16 Threshold monitoring
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/0428 wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/08 for authentication of entities cryptographic mechanisms or cryptographic arrangements for entity authentication H04L9/32
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 63/104 Grouping of entities

Abstract

The present invention relates to a communication control system, and provides specifically a peer-to-peer (P2P) communication control system making it possible to effectively exploit P2P communication within an organizational network. The communication control system includes: an authentication server that authenticates a terminal which requests subscription to a network, sends communication priority information to the terminal whose subscription is permitted, and delivers communication regulation information based on the communication priority information to a router which accommodates the terminal; a terminal that uses a packet, to which the communication priority information sent from the authentication server is appended, to perform communication after having subscription thereof permitted; and a router that monitors the packet sent from the terminal, and imposes a communication regulation on the terminal according to the communication regulation information based on the communication priority information and delivered from the authentication server.

Claims

1. A communication control system, comprising:

an authentication server that authenticates a terminal which requests subscription to a network, sends communication priority information to the terminal whose subscription is permitted, and delivers communication regulation information based on the communication priority information to a router which accommodates the terminal;

a terminal that uses a packet, in which the communication priority information sent from the authentication server is marked, to perform communication after having subscription thereof permitted; and

a router that monitors the packet sent from the terminal, and imposes a communication regulation on the terminal according to the communication regulation information based on the communication priority information and delivered from the authentication server.

2. The communication control system according to claim 1, wherein the router requests cease of transmission as the communication regulation imposed on the terminal.

3. The communication control system according to claim 1, wherein the authentication server periodically produces the communication regulation information and delivers it to the router.

4. The communication control system according to claim 1, wherein:

the terminal requests subscription to a predetermined group;

the authentication server determines the communication priority information on the basis of the degree of importance of the group, periodically creates as the communication regulation information a cease-communication eligible group ranking list according to the degree of importance of the group, and delivers the cease-communication eligible group ranking list to the routers;

the router monitors an amount of traffic represented by the packet in relation to each communication priority information so as to sense a congestion condition; and

when having sensed congestion, the router uses the cease-communication eligible group ranking list to request the terminal, which belongs to a group whose degree of importance is low, to cease communication.

5. The communication control system according to claim 4, wherein the authentication server creates a cease-communication eligible group ranking list on the basis of the scale of a site dominated by the router.

6. The communication control system according to claim 5, wherein assuming that the site scale is expressed by the number of groups to which terminals dominated by the router subscribe, when the number of groups is equal to or larger than a predetermined value, the authentication server creates the cease-communication eligible group ranking list to be delivered to the router, and delivers it to the router.

7. The communication control system according to claim 4, wherein:

the authentication server sends the communication priority information and encryption information on a group, to which the terminal subscribes, to the terminal; and

the terminal encrypts the packet, in which the communication priority information is marked, using the encryption information, and then performs communication.

8. The communication control system according to claim 7, wherein:

the authentication server appends the encryption information to the cease-communication eligible group ranking list to be delivered to the router; and

the router uses the communication cease request packet, which is encrypted using the encryption information, to request the terminal to cease communication.

9. The communication control system according to claim 8, wherein:

the authentication server appends the communication cease request packet, which is encrypted using the encryption information, instead of appending the encryption information to the cease-communication eligible group ranking list; and

the router uses the encrypted communication cease request packet, which is received from the authentication server, to request the terminal to communication cease.

10. The communication control system according to claim 4, wherein the network is an enterprise network that is a peer-to-peer (P2P) network, the terminal is a P2P application terminal, the group is a P2P group, and the router is a customer edge (CE) router.