System and Method for Routing Internet Traffic Over Internet Links

• US 20120020211A1
• Filed: 09/20/2011
• Published: 01/26/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/28/2000
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Narendran, Paranthaman
• Granted Patent: US 8,837,293 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/231
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/06 Buying, selling or leasing transactions
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0601 Electronic shopping [e-shopping]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/145 trading network capacity or selecting route based on tariff
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/30 Decision processes by autonomous network management units using voting and bidding
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0882 Utilisation of link capacity
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/22 Alternate routing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/26 Route discovery packet
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/122 by diverting traffic away from congested entities
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/822 Collecting or measuring resource availability data

Abstract

An apparatus and method for routing IP traffic in real time from at least one network user to a plurality of Internet links. Embodiments include assigning different ranks to different internet links based on network monitoring. In one embodiment, a system for routing Internet traffic includes an Internet route optimizer to generate routing instructions for incoming data packets using financial costs of routing data packets on the internet links, the traffic condition information corresponding to the internet links, and the types of data of the incoming data packets. In another embodiment, a method to generate a routing instruction to route an internet data packet uses financial costs of routing data packets on the internet links serving the end destination, traffic condition information of the internet links serving the end destination, and the type of data of the incoming data packet.

Claims

1. A system for routing internet traffic over a plurality of internet links, the system comprising:

an internet router having (i) a plurality of input ports to receive a plurality of incoming data packets from one or more network users and (ii) a plurality of output ports coupled to a plurality of internet links, wherein each output port is coupled to an associated internet link, the internet router including;

traffic measuring circuitry, coupled to the input ports, to determine types of data of the incoming data packets;

monitoring circuitry, coupled to the output ports, to monitor traffic conditions on the plurality of internet links and to generate traffic condition information corresponding thereto;

switching circuitry, coupled to the input ports and the output ports, to couple selected input ports to the selected output ports in response to control signals; and

switch controller, coupled to the switching circuitry, to generate the control signals using routing instructions; and

an internet route optimizer, coupled to the internet router, to generate the routing instructions for incoming data packets using;

(1) financial costs of routing data packets on the internet links, (2) the traffic condition information corresponding to the internet links, and (3) the types of data of the incoming data packets.

2. The system of claim 1 wherein the traffic condition information corresponding to a given internet link is an amount of time between when a packet is sent over the given internet link and when the packet arrives at a predetermined destination.

3. The system of claim 2 wherein the system determines the amount of time between when a packet is sent over the given internet link and when the packet arrives at the predetermined destination by pinging the predetermined destination over the given internet link.

4. The system of claim 2 wherein the traffic condition information associated with a given internet link is determined by pinging the predetermined destination via the given internet link.

5. The system of claim 1 wherein the internet route optimizer statistically measures a response time for each internet link serving a predetermined destination and, based thereon, assigns each of the internet links serving the predetermined destination to one of a plurality of ranges of response times.

6. The system of claim 5 wherein the internet route optimizer statistically measures a response time for each internet link serving the predetermined destination by pinging, a number of times, the predetermined destination over each internet link serving the predetermined destination.

7. The system of claim 6 wherein the internet route optimizer assigns each internet link to one of a plurality of ranges of response times.

8. The system of claim 1 wherein the internet route optimizer includes a central processing unit and memory.

9. The system of claim 1 wherein the types of data include video, voice over IP, corporate traffic and/or standard ISP traffic.

10. A method of generating a routing instruction to route an incoming data packet of internet traffic to an end destination using an internet router having (i) at least one input port to receive the incoming data packet from one or more network users and (ii) a plurality of output ports, wherein each of the plurality of output ports is coupled to an associated Internet link, the method comprising:

determining a type of data of the incoming data packet;

determining traffic condition information for each of the internet links serving the end destination;

generating a routing instruction for the incoming data packet using;

(1) financial costs of routing data packets on the internet links serving the end destination, (2) traffic condition information of the internet links serving the end destination, and (3) the type of data of the incoming data packet; and

outputting the routing instruction.

11. The method of claim 10 wherein determining traffic condition information for each of the internet links serving the end destination includes pinging the end destination.

12. The method of claim 10 wherein the types of data include video, voice over IP, corporate traffic and/or standard ISP traffic.

13. The method of claim 10 wherein the routing instruction for the incoming data packet identifies the internet link corresponding to the least expensive of the plurality of internet links which provides less than a predetermined temporal delay for the type of data of the incoming data packet.

14. The method of claim 10 wherein method further includes determining available bandwidth capacity of internet links serving the end destination, and wherein generating a routing instruction for the incoming data packet further includes using (4) the available bandwidth capacity of the internet links serving the end destination.

15. The method of claim 10 further including statistically measuring a response time for each internet link serving the end destination.

16. The method of claim 15 further including assigning each of the internet links serving the end destination to one of a plurality of ranges of response times.

17. The method of claim 15 wherein statistically measuring a response time for each internet link includes pinging the end destination a plurality of times.

18. The method of claim 17 further including assigning each of the internet links serving the end destination to one of a plurality of ranges of response times.

19. A system for routing internet traffic over a plurality of internet links, the system comprising:

an internet router having (i) a plurality of input ports to receive a plurality of incoming data packets from one or more network users and (ii) a plurality of output ports coupled to a plurality of internet links, wherein each output port is coupled to an internet link, the internet router including;

traffic measuring circuitry, coupled to the input ports, to determine types of data of the incoming data packets;

monitoring circuitry, coupled to the output ports, to monitor traffic conditions on the plurality of internet links and to generate traffic condition information corresponding thereto;

switching circuitry, coupled to the input ports and the output ports, to connect selected input ports to the selected output ports in response to control signals; and

switch controller, coupled to the switching circuitry, to generate the control signals using routing instructions; and

an internet route optimizer, coupled to the internet router, to generate the routing instructions for incoming data packets using;

(1) available bandwidth capacity information corresponding to the internet links, (2) financial costs of routing data packets on the internet links, (3) the traffic condition information, and (4) the types of data of the incoming data packets.

20. The system of claim 19 wherein the traffic condition information corresponds to an amount of time between when a packet is sent over an internet link and when the packet arrives at a predetermined destination.