APPARATUS FOR FLOW CONTROL

• US 20090238111A1
• Filed: 06/14/2007
• Published: 09/24/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 06/14/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Panasonic Intellectual Property Corporation of America (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Panasonic Corporation (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Ng, Chan Wah, Tan, Pek Yew, Aso, Keigo, Hirano, Jun, Koh, Tien Ming Benjamin, Lim, Chun Keong Benjamin
• Granted Patent: US 8,249,086 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/328
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/66 Arrangements for connecting between networks having differing types of switching systems, e.g. gateways
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/38 Flow based routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2491 Mapping quality of service [QoS] requirements between different networks
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5014 using dynamic host configuration protocol [DHCP] or bootstrap protocol [BOOTP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/5061 Pools of addresses
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/10 Flow control between communication endpoints
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 60/005 Multiple registrations, e.g. multihoming
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 8/26 Network addressing or numbering for mobility support
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 80/04 Network layer protocols, e.g. mobile IP [Internet Protocol]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 84/005 Moving wireless networks

Abstract

Disclosed is a technique which enables a mobile node (MN) connected to a mobile router (MR) to carry out flow filtering in a mobile network. This technique allows an MN 25 in a mobile network 24 to set a policy needed for the flow filtering in an MR 10 and, in the present invention, an MR inserts an egress characteristic thereof into, for example, a router advertisement message so that the egress characteristic, a node in a mobile network cannot grasp originally, can be advertised to the interior of the mobile network. Thus, the MN can grasp a characteristic of an access network (characteristic of access system 20) even in a case in which it is connected to the MR, which achieves intelligent flow filtering.

Claims

1. An apparatus for flow control which is located in a mobile router having a mobile network as a subordinate, comprising:

one or a plurality of egress interfaces used for communication with a node existing in the exterior of said mobile network;

one or a plurality of ingress interfaces used for communication with a node connected to said mobile network;

a filter policy list storing a flow filter policy describing at least association between traffic of the node connected to said mobile network and identification information on said egress interface to be used for the traffic; and

matching means for, when a packet is transferred from the node connected to said mobile network, retrieving the flow filter policy of the node from said filter policy list to select the egress interface to be used for the transfer of the packet by referring to the retrieved flow filter policy.

2. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 1, further comprising characteristic information inserting means for inserting information indicative of a characteristic of a network, with which the egress interface of said mobile router is in connection, into a router advertisement message to be transmitted through the ingress interface into the interior of said mobile network.

3. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 2, further comprising:

virtual identifier information setting means for setting virtual identifier information for identifying information indicative of the network characteristic; and

virtual identifier information storing means for storing the association between the virtual identifier information and the network characteristic.

4. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 3, further comprising:

virtual identifier information updating means for, when a variation of the network characteristic occurs, re-establishing the association between the virtual identifier information and the network characteristic so as to update the association between the virtual identifier information and the network characteristic.

5. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 3, wherein same virtual identifier is allocated to, of the network characteristics of said plurality of egress interfaces, the network characteristics similar in type to each other so as to aggregate the plurality of network characteristics into one virtual identifier.

6. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 3, wherein, upon receipt of a request from the node connected to said mobile network, said characteristic information inserting means inserts the information indicative of the network characteristic into the router advertisement message.

7. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 2, wherein the network characteristic is allocated to a predetermined range of an address prefix used in said mobile network.

8. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 7, wherein said characteristic information inserting means is made to insert the information indicative of the network characteristic into the router advertisement message transmitted periodically.

9. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 1, wherein the flow filter policy of the node is received from the node connected to said mobile network and the received flow filter policy is stored in said filter policy list.

10. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 2, further comprising default router option inserting means for inserting a default router option, to the effect that said mobile router itself functions as a default router, into said router advertisement message.

11. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 1, wherein each of said plurality of egress interfaces is associated with a value of a specified one bit of an address prefix for use in said mobile network, and information containing the address prefix set so that the packet is transmitted through each of said plurality of egress interfaces according to the specified one bit value associated with each of said egress interfaces is inserted into a router advertisement message transmitted through the ingress interface to the interior of said mobile network.

12. An apparatus for flow control which is located in a node connected to a mobile network under a mobile router, comprising:

characteristic information acquiring means for acquiring information indicative of a characteristic of an egress interface of said mobile router from said mobile router;

flow filter policy generating means for generating a flow filter policy describing at least the association between traffic of the node and identification information on said egress interface of said mobile router to be used for the traffic on the basis of the information acquired by said characteristic information acquiring means; and

flow filter policy transmitting means for transmitting the flow filter policy to said mobile router.

13. The apparatus for flow control according to claim 12, wherein said characteristic information acquiring means is made to extract a network characteristic inserted into router advertisement message transmitted from said mobile router.