COMMUNICATIONS NETWORK

• US 20130191537A1
• Filed: 09/09/2011
• Published: 07/25/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 09/30/2010
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Original Assignee: British Telecommunications PLC (BT Group PLC)
• Inventors: Ivanov, Anton Radostinovinch, Nadeau, Thomas David
• Granted Patent: US 9,344,348 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 709/224
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 43/0876 Network utilisation, e.g. volume of load or congestion level
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2408 for supporting different services, e.g. a differentiated services [DiffServ] type of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/35 involving non-standard use of addresses for implementing network functionalities, e.g. coding subscription information within the address or functional addressing, i.e. assigning an address to a function
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 61/4511 using domain name system [DNS]

Abstract

A network element and method for marking traffic in a packet-switched data network which comprises a distributed hierarchical naming system and the network element. The network element comprises a marking rule store for storing marking rules, in which each marking rule is indicative of a quality of service level allocated to traffic on a connection impinging on the network element. The network element derives from the distributed hierarchical naming system quality of service level data for a connection, stores in the marking rule store a marking rule for the connection based on the retrieved quality of service level data and marks traffic on the connection in accordance with the marking rule.

Claims

1-10. -10. (canceled)

11. Customer premises equipment for a packet-switched data network, in which the packet-switched data network comprises a distributed hierarchical naming system;

in which the customer premises equipment comprises a marking rule store for storing marking rules, in which a marking rule is indicative of a quality of service level allocated to a connection impinging on the customer premises equipment;

in which the customer premises equipment is arranged in use to;

derive from the distributed hierarchical naming system quality of service data for a connection impinging on the customer premises equipment;

store in the marking rule store a marking rule for the connection based on the derived quality of service data; and

mark traffic on the connection in accordance with the marking rule.

12. The customer premises equipment as claimed in claim 11, in which the customer premises equipment also comprises a connection state store for storing connection state information;

in which the connection state store comprises a number of entries;

in which each entry comprises information relating to the state of a connection impinging on the customer premises equipment;

in which the customer premises equipment is arranged in use to;

scan the connection state store to identify an entry corresponding to a new connection impinging on the customer premises equipment;

on detecting such an entry, derive from the distributed hierarchical naming system quality of service data for the new connection; and

store in the marking rule store a marking rule for the new connection based on the derived quality of service data.

13. The customer premises equipment as claimed in claim 12, in which, prior to deriving quality of service data for a new connection, traffic on the new connection is marked with an initial quality of service level marking.

14. A method for marking traffic in a packet-switched data network, in which the packet-switched data network comprises a distributed hierarchical naming system and customer premises equipment;

in which the customer premises equipment comprises a marking rule store for storing marking rules, in which each marking rule is indicative of a quality of service level allocated to a connection impinging on the customer premises equipment;

in which the method comprises;

deriving from the distributed hierarchical naming system quality of service data for a connection;

storing in the marking rule store a marking rule for the connection based on the derived quality of service data; and

marking traffic on the connection in accordance with the marking rule.

15. The method as claimed in claim 14, in which the customer premises equipment:

identifies a new connection impinging on the customer premises equipment;

derives from the distributed hierarchical naming system quality of service data for the new connection;

stores in the marking rule store a marking rule for the new connection based on the derived quality of service data; and

marks traffic on the connection in accordance with the marking rule for the new connection.

16. The method as claimed in claim 14, comprising, prior to deriving quality of service data for a new connection, marking traffic on the new connection with an initial quality of service level marking.

17. The method as claimed in claim 14, in which the quality of service data for the connection comprises quality of service data corresponding to at least one network of the connection, in which an address of the connection comprises a series of address bits arranged in order of significance from a least significant bit position to a most significant bit position, in which the method comprises:

sending a series of queries in succession to the distributed hierarchical naming system to derive quality of service data corresponding to at least one network of the connection;

in which each one of the series of successive queries is associated with a masked form of the address of the connection;

in which each masked form of the address comprises a series of contiguous address bits that occurs in the address of the connection and a series of contiguous masked bits set to a common value;

in which the series of contiguous masked bits comprises the least significant address bit position and the series of contiguous address bits comprises the most significant bit position,

in which each subsequent query in the series is associated with a masked form of the address of the connection which comprises more masked bits and a correspondingly lower number of the address bits occurring in the address of the connection when compared with the masked form of the address with which the immediately previous query in the series is associated;

in which the method further comprises;

terminating the series of queries upon receipt from the distributed hierarchical naming system of an indication indicating that the most recent query of the series relates to a valid address

selecting the quality of service data derived in response to the most recent query of the series of queries;

based on the selected quality of service data, storing in the marking rule store a marking rule for the network corresponding to the most recent query; and

marking traffic on the connection in accordance with the marking rule.

18. The method as claimed in claim 14, in which the quality of service data for the connection comprises quality of service data corresponding to at least one network of the connection, in which an address of the connection comprises a series of address bits arranged in order of significance from a least significant bit position to a most significant bit position, in which the method comprises:

sending a series of queries in succession to the distributed hierarchical naming system to derive quality of service data corresponding to at least one network of the connection;

in which each one of the series of successive queries is associated with a masked form of the address of the connection;

in which each masked form of the address comprises a series of contiguous address bits that occurs in the address of the connection and a series of contiguous masked bits set to a common value;

in which the series of contiguous masked bits comprises the least significant address bit position and the series of contiguous address bits comprises the most significant bit position;

in which each subsequent query in the series is associated with a masked form of the address of the connection which comprises fewer masked bits and a correspondingly higher number of the address bits occurring in the address of the connection when compared with the masked form of the address with which the immediately previous query in the series is associated;

in which the method further comprises;

terminating the series of queries upon receipt from the distributed hierarchical naming system of an indication indicating that the most recent query of the series relates to a nonexistent domain;

selecting the quality of service data derived in response to the penultimate query of the series of queries;

based on the selected quality of service data, storing in the marking rule store a marking rule for the network corresponding to the penultimate query; and

marking traffic on the connection in accordance with the marking rule.

19. A method as claimed in claim 14, where the customer premises equipment caches locally quality of service data derived from the distributed hierarchical naming system.

20. The method as claimed in claim 14, comprising deriving quality of service data from the distributed hierarchical naming system by retrieving the quality of service data from a location pointed to by the distributed hierarchical naming system.