Quality of service priority subclasses
First Claim
1. A method for prioritizing cells of a common quality of service for prioritized entry into a queue of an asynchronous transfer mode network element, said queue being one of plural queues, each for indicating where, in a common buffer, cells of a respective quality of service are stored, the method comprising, with respect to each cell, the steps of:
- receiving, by a processing element associated with said network element, a cell having a header portion;
identifying, by said processing element, a quality of service indicator for said cell from said cell header portion;
identifying, by said processing element, a network element queue associated with said identified quality of service;
monitoring the capacity of said identified queue by said processing element;
detecting, by said processing element, one or more queue capacity thresholds associated with said identified queue and achieved by said monitored capacity, said one or more queue capacity thresholds stored in a memory unit associated with said processing element;
identifying, by said processing element, a priority assignment of said cell from said cell header portion; and
determining by said processing element, whether to discard or enqueue said cell in said identified queue associated with said identified quality of service based upon a comparison of said one or more achieved queue capacity thresholds and said identified priority assignment.
2 Assignments
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
Prioritized subclasses of cells within at least one quality of service (QoS) level in an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network element are described. Corresponding QoS queues are provided with one or more thresholds for intelligent discard of incoming cells within a QoS, based upon cell priority, at the onset of queue congestion. Cells having a first priority within a QoS are discarded as a first queue threshold is achieved; cells having a higher priority are enqueued. A cell loss priority (CLP) bit is employed to provide a further degree of cell discard prioritization. Different traffic streams within a single queue have different priorities, enabling intelligent discard of lower priority traffic prior to complete queue congestion.
357 Citations
17 Claims
-
1. A method for prioritizing cells of a common quality of service for prioritized entry into a queue of an asynchronous transfer mode network element, said queue being one of plural queues, each for indicating where, in a common buffer, cells of a respective quality of service are stored, the method comprising, with respect to each cell, the steps of:
-
receiving, by a processing element associated with said network element, a cell having a header portion; identifying, by said processing element, a quality of service indicator for said cell from said cell header portion; identifying, by said processing element, a network element queue associated with said identified quality of service; monitoring the capacity of said identified queue by said processing element; detecting, by said processing element, one or more queue capacity thresholds associated with said identified queue and achieved by said monitored capacity, said one or more queue capacity thresholds stored in a memory unit associated with said processing element; identifying, by said processing element, a priority assignment of said cell from said cell header portion; and determining by said processing element, whether to discard or enqueue said cell in said identified queue associated with said identified quality of service based upon a comparison of said one or more achieved queue capacity thresholds and said identified priority assignment. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
-
-
9. An asynchronous transfer mode network element providing prioritization to received cells of a common quality of service within said network element, comprising:
-
a buffer for selectively storing said received cells; plural queues within said network element, each for indicating where, in said buffer, said received cells of said common quality of service are selectively stored; a queue monitoring element in communication with each of said queues for monitoring a respective queue capacity; a memory unit, in communication with said queue monitoring element, for retaining a table of one or more queue capacity thresholds for each of said plural queues and a priority, associated with a received cell, required at each of said one or more thresholds for entry of said received cell into a respective queue; and a processing element, in communication with said queue monitoring element and said memory unit, for analyzing a header of said received cell to determine a quality of service associated therewith and to identify a respective queue from among said plural queues based upon said cell quality of service, analyzing said header of said received cell to determine a priority associated therewith, and comparing said queue capacity of said identified respective queue with said one or more queue capacity thresholds of said memory unit table to determine if said analyzed priority is said cell priority required for entering said received cell into said respective queue. - View Dependent Claims (10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
-
Specification