Time-Value Curves to Provide Dynamic QoS for Time Sensitive File Transfers

• US 20080040630A1
• Filed: 08/31/2006
• Published: 02/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 09/29/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Lavian, Tal, Schofield, Bruce, Travostino, Franco, Monga, Inder
• Granted Patent: US 8,146,090 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 714/11
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/826 Involving periods of time

Abstract

A method and apparatus has been shown and described which allows Quality of Service to be controlled at a temporal granularity. Time-value curves, generated for each task, ensure that mission resources are utilized in a manner which optimizes mission performance. It should be noted, however, that although the present invention has shown and described the use of time-value curves as applied to mission workflow tasks, the present invention is not limited to this application; rather, it can be readily appreciated by one of skill in the art that time-value curves may be used to optimize the delivery of any resource to any consumer by taking into account the dynamic environment of the consumer and resource

Claims

1. A method of allocating a resource to a plurality of resource consumers includes the steps of:

generating a time-value curve defining a temporally dynamic priority of a resource consumer over a time period; and

using the time-value curve to allocate access to the resource to the consumer over the time period.

2. The method of claim 1 wherein the temporally dynamic priority defines a temporally dynamic quality of service to provide to the resource consumer.

3. The method of claim 1 wherein each of the plurality of resource consumers has an associated time-value curve and wherein at least two of the time value curves are different.

4. The method of claim 3 wherein the step of using the time value curve to allocate access to the resource includes the steps of:

sampling time value curves at periodic intervals to obtain sampled time-values for each of the plurality of resource consumers; and

using the sampled time values to select one of the plurality of resource consumers as an access consumer for accessing the resource for a periodic interval.

5. The method of claim 4 wherein the time value curves are differently weighted.

6. The method of claim 4 wherein the time value curves have different lifetimes.

7. A method of allocating a resource to a plurality of resource tasks in a workflow includes the steps of:

generating a time value curve for each task in the workflow, the time-value curve defining a temporally dynamic quality of service to be provided to the task, and

using the time-value curve to select one of the plurality of tasks.

8. The method of claim 7 wherein the time-value curves are associated with dynamic tasks which have a lifetime.

9. The method of claim 8 further including the step of using the time-value curves to identify stalled tasks.

10. The method of claim 9 including the step of aborting stalled tasks to reduce congestion.

11. The method of claim 7 wherein the step of generating a time value-curve for each task includes the steps of:

selecting a generic task profile; and

modifying the generic task profile with task specific information to provide a task specific time-value curve.

12. The method of claim 11 wherein the generic task profile is defined by the below equation I:

P(T)=Min(mT+b, MaxP)  

 

Equation I

wherein P is a priority of the task at time T, m is derived through a combination of a value of the task, a lifetime of the task and an execution time of the task, b is determined according to the value of the task and Max (P) represents the highest priority to allocate to the task.

13. The method of claim 7 wherein the time-value curve is used to calculate a quality of service for the task.

14. A policy engine comprising:

generic task profile information; and

time value curve generation logic operably coupled to receive task specific information and to calculate a time-value curve for the task using the generic task profile information and the task specific information.

15. The policy engine of claim 14 wherein the time-value curve defines a temporal quality of service for the task.

16. A device comprising a computer readable medium accessible by a resource allocator, the computer readable medium for storing a data structure comprising, for each one of a plurality of enquired tasks associated with the resource, a time value curve defining a temporal priority to provide to the associated task, the data structure being accessed by the resource controller to control access to the resource.