Network traffic manager server for providing policy-based recommendations to clients

• US 5,870,561 A
• Filed: 03/15/1996
• Issued: 02/09/1999
• Est. Priority Date: 03/15/1996
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Oracle International Corporation (Oracle Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Novell Incorporated (Open Text Corporation)
• Inventors: Hawkins, Jeffrey T., Jarvis, Brian Lee
• Primary Examiner(s): Lall, Parshotam S.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Barot, Bharat
• Application Number:
  US08/619,814
• Time in Patent Office: 1,061 Days
• Field of Search: 395/200.01, 395/200.02, 395/200.03, 395/200.06, 395/200.09-200.12, 395/200.15, 395/200.3-200.34, 395/200.46-200.5 , 395/200.49-200.56, 395/200.68-200.72, 395/672-675, 379/220-221
• US Class Current: 709/238
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0893 Assignment of logical groups to network elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/0894 Policy-based network configuration management
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/781 Centralised allocation of resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/808 User-type aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/826 Involving periods of time

Abstract

A policy-driven network traffic manager recommends to individual application programs that generate network traffic whether, and optionally under what conditions, they should generate network traffic. The network traffic manager has an interface, through which the application programs, prior to generating network traffic, call the network traffic manager and describe the traffic the application programs propose to generate. A policy repository stores a set of policies, which the network traffic manager uses to ascertain whether the application programs should generate the proposed network traffic. The policies can include considerations such as time, link cost, latency, congestion and availability. The network traffic manager then sends the recommendations to the application programs.

Claims

1. A network traffic manager (server) for providing policy-based recommendations to application programs (clients) capable of generating network traffic, the server comprising:

(a) an interface for receiving requests from the clients, each request associated with a proposed generation of network traffic by one of the clients, each request comprising at least one required parameter that describes type of network traffic that the requesting client proposes to generate and also comprising at least one optional parameter that inquires as to whether said proposed generation should be postponed and automatically initiated by the requesting client at a future time if at all;

(b) means for forming a recommendation relating to whether the requesting client should generate the proposed network traffic, the recommendation based on one or more policies that include the required and optional parameters received from the requesting client, said recommendation including indication as to whether or not said proposed generation should take place, and if said indication indicates that said proposed generation should not take place, then said recommendation also includes a further indication as to whether said proposed generation should take place at said future time; and

(c) means for providing the recommendation to the requesting client.

2. A network traffic manager (server) for providing policy-based recommendations to application programs (clients), each client occasionally generating network traffic, the server comprising:

(a) an interface for receiving requests from the clients, each request associated with a proposed generation of network traffic by one of the clients, each request comprising at least one required parameter that describes the proposed generation of network traffic by the requesting client;

(b) means for storing a set of policies, each policy comprising;

(i) at least one selection criterion and

(ii) associated control information; and

(c) a policy selector responsive to each request for;

(i) selecting one policy from the set of policies, the policy selection based on the at least one required parameter received from the requesting client and the at least one selection criterion of the selected policy;

(ii) forming, according to the control information associated with the selected policy, a recommendation as to whether network traffic should be generated; and

(iii) providing the recommendation to the requesting client;

wherein each said request also includes a further recommendation request from the requesting client to the server that if the recommendation provided to the requesting client at step (c)(iii) indicates that network traffic should not be generated, said server should automatically inform the requesting client at a future time via a further recommendation when said network traffic should be generated said further recommendation causing said requesting client to automatically initiate network traffic previously queued at said requesting client.

3. The server defined in claim 2, wherein:

(i) the interface for receiving requests from the clients comprises means for receiving one or more optional parameters with each request from a requesting client;

(ii) the policy selector calculates, according to the control information associated with the selected policy, a value for each optional parameter received from the requesting client; and

(iii) the policy selector sends each calculated value for each optional parameter to the requesting client.

4. The server defined in claim 2, further comprising means for detecting an event and, responsive to the event, for sending to at least one of the requesting clients a recommendation that network traffic should be generated.

5. The server defined in claim 4, wherein the network traffic is carried over network links and wherein the event is a change in status of at least one of the network links.

6. The server defined in claim 5, wherein the change in status is a startup of the at least one of the network links.

7. The server defined in claim 4, wherein:

(i) the server further comprises a counter, the policy selector incrementing the counter when the policy selector provides a recommendation that one of the requesting clients should not generate network traffic and (ii) wherein the event occurs when the counter exceeds a predetermined value.

8. The server defined in claim 2, further comprising a policy editor for altering one of the policies in the means for storing a set of policies.

9. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the control information associated with at least one policy comprises at least one formula.

10. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the control information associated with at least one policy comprises machine-code instructions.

11. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the control information associated with at least one policy comprises byte-code instructions.

12. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the control information associated with at least one policy comprises object-code instructions.

13. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the control information associated with at least one policy comprises source-code instructions.

14. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the means for storing a set of policies comprises a table.

15. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the means for storing a set of policies comprises a textual entry in a database.

16. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the means for storing a set of policies comprises a distributed, hierarchical database.

17. The server defined in claim 16, wherein the distributed, hierarchical database is NetWare Directory Services (NDS).

18. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the means for storing a set of policies comprises an expression tree.

19. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the interface for receiving requests is a application programming interface (API).

20. The server defined in claim 2, wherein the at least one required parameter received from the requesting client comprises:

(i) a type of network traffic the requesting client proposes to generate and

(ii) a destination address to which the requesting client proposes to send the network traffic.

21. A network traffic manager (server) for providing policy-based recommendations to application programs (clients), the clients occasionally generating network traffic, the server comprising:

(a) an interface for receiving requests from the clients, each request associated with a proposed generation of network traffic by one of the clients, each request comprising at least one required parameter that describes the proposed generation of network traffic by the requesting client and also comprising a further parameter that inquires as to whether said proposed generation should be postponed and automatically commenced by said requesting client at a future time, if at all;

(b) means for storing a set of policies, each policy comprising;

(i) at least one selection criterion and

(ii) an associated recommendation as to whether network traffic should be generated and if said network traffic should not be generated, whether said network traffic should take place at said future time; and

(c) a policy selector responsive to each request, for;

(i) selecting one policy from the set of policies, the policy selection based on at least the at least one required parameter received from the requesting client and the at least one selection criterion of the selected policy; and

(ii) providing the recommendation associated with the selected policy to the requesting client.

22. A network traffic manager (server) for providing policy-based recommendations to application programs (clients), the clients occasionally generating network traffic, the server comprising:

(a) an interface for receiving requests from the clients, each request associated with a proposed generation of network traffic by one of the clients, each request comprising at least one required parameter that describes the proposed generation of network traffic by the requesting client;

(b) means for calculating a cost of the proposed generation of network traffic, the calculation based on a policy that includes the at least one required parameter received from the requesting client; and

(c) a recommendation generator responsive to each request, for;

(i) comparing the calculated cost with a predetermined value;

(ii) when the calculated cost is less than the predetermined value, providing the requesting client a recommendation that the proposed network traffic should be generated; and

(iii) when the calculated cost is greater than the predetermined value, providing the requesting client a recommendation that the proposed network traffic should not be generated at present time, but that said proposed network traffic should be automatically queued at said present time and initiated by said requesting client at a future time specified in the recommendation.

23. The server defined in claim 22, wherein the predetermined value depends on at least a portion of the at least one required parameter received from the requesting client.

24. The server defined in claim 23, wherein the at least one required parameter received from the requesting client comprises:

(i) a type of network traffic the requesting client proposes to generate and

(ii) a destination address to which the requesting client proposes to send the network traffic.

25. A method of controlling network traffic generated by an application program (client), comprising the steps of:

sending a request to a network traffic manager, said request being associated with a proposed generation of network traffic by the node and comprising at least one required parameter that describes the proposed generation of network traffic, wherein said request is sent to the network traffic manager prior to generating the associated network traffic; and

receiving at said client a recommendation in response to said request, wherein said recommendation relates to whether the associated proposed network traffic should be generated and if said associated proposed network traffic should not be generated said recommendation also specifying a future time at which said associated proposed network traffic should be automatically generated.

26. The method of claim 25, wherein said step of sending includes the step of

sending one or more optional parameters with said request;

and wherein said step of receiving includes the step of

receiving, with each recommendation, a calculated value for each optional parameter sent with the corresponding request.

27. The method of claim 26, further comprising the step of selecting whether to generate associated proposed network traffic in response to said recommendation.

28. The method of claim 26, further comprising the step of utilizing at least one of the calculated values to select said future time at which to generate the associated proposed network traffic.

29. The method of claim 25, further comprising the step of receiving recommendations from the network traffic manager in response to an event detected by the network traffic manager, wherein said recommendation indicates whether the node should generate the proposed network traffic.

30. The method of claim 29, wherein said step for receiving recommendations from the network traffic manager in response to an event detected by the network traffic manager is associated with a link start up.

31. The method of claim 25 wherein said at least one required parameter comprises information indicative of:

a type of proposed network traffic to be generated; and

a destination address to which the proposed network traffic is to be sent.

32. The method of claim 26 wherein said step of sending a request includes a step of performing an application programming interface (API) call to an API associated with the network traffic manager.

33. A method of managing network traffic at a node connected to a computer network, the method comprising the steps of:

generating a request associated with a proposed generation of network traffic by the node, wherein said request includes at least one parameter indicator of the type of traffic to be generated by the node;

receiving said request, and forming a recommendation by comparing said request against a set of policies and setting said recommendation in response to comparing said request against said set of policies, said recommendation relating to whether the associated proposed network traffic should be generated and if said associated proposed network traffic should not be generated, said recommendation also specifying a future time at which said associated proposed network traffic should be automatically generated; and

evaluating said recommendation to determine whether to generate the network traffic.

34. A method of controlling network traffic generated by an application program (client) executing in a processing node connected to a computer network and capable of generating network traffic on the computer network, comprising the steps of:

generating a request associated with a proposed generation of network traffic by the node to the computer network, wherein said request includes at least one parameter indicative of the type of traffic to be generated by the node;

receiving said request and forming an initial recommendation indicative of whether the network traffic should be transmitted; and

evaluating said initial recommendation to determine whether to generate the network traffic;

wherein if said initial recommendation indicates that said network traffic should not be generated, said method further comprises the steps of automatically forming another recommendation at a future time when said network traffic should occur and automatically initiating said network traffic in response to said another recommendation.

35. The method of claim 34, wherein said step of forming said initial recommendation further comprises the steps of:

comparing said request against a predefined set of policies; and

setting said initial recommendation in response to comparing said request against said predefined set of policies.