Method and apparatus of storing policies for policy-based management of quality of service treatments of network data traffic flows

• US 6,463,470 B1
• Filed: 08/18/1999
• Issued: 10/08/2002
• Est. Priority Date: 10/26/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Strassner, John, Snir, Yoram, Mohaban, Shai, Ramberg, Yoram, Parnafes, Itzhak
• Primary Examiner(s): Meky, Moustafa M.
• Application Number:
  US09/376,802
• Time in Patent Office: 1,147 Days
• Field of Search: 709/200, 709/201, 709/203, 709/217, 709/218, 709/219, 709/220, 709/221, 709/222, 709/223, 709/224
• US Class Current: 709/223
• 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 41/0895 Configuration of virtualised networks or elements, e.g. virtualised network function or OpenFlow elements
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5003 Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5019 Ensuring fulfilment of SLA
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5045 Making service definitions prior to deployment
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 41/5096 wherein the managed service relates to distributed or central networked applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/20 Traffic policing
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2408 for supporting different services, e.g. a differentiated services [DiffServ] type of service
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2433 Allocation of priorities to traffic types
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2441 relying on flow classification, e.g. using integrated services [IntServ]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2458 Modification of priorities while in transit
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2475 for supporting traffic characterised by the type of applications
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/724 at intermediate nodes, e.g. resource reservation protocol [RSVP]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/765 triggered by the end-points
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/803 Application aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/805 QOS or priority aware

Abstract

A method and apparatus for storing policies for use in policy-based management of quality of service treatments of network data traffic flows are described. The policies are stored in the form of policy statements. Each policy statement applies to a specific application that runs in the network. Each policy statement includes a condition and a network service to be applied to all traffic matching the condition. Each condition comprises one or more basic condition components connected by operators. Each basic condition comprises a basic policy parameter identifier, an operator and an operand. Policy statements are stored in a Repository, which may be a Directory Server or an X.500 directory. A policy server may create and store policies in the Repository based on information about the application, the network devices, and the quality of service treatments that the network devices can apply to a traffic flow. An application program and the policy server network device can retrieve the policy information from the Repository using appropriate function calls or an access protocol such as LDAP. In an alternative embodiment, a complete quality of service directory schema for representing abstract policies is disclosed.

Claims

1. A method of integrating a network with policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices, comprising the steps of:

creating and storing information structures representing one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices;

creating and storing application information that associates one or more traffic flows generated by an application program, including information identifying one or more points at which an application generates the traffic flows;

receiving device QoS information that defines one or more quality of service treatments that the network device may apply to data processed by the network device;

based on the device QoS information and the application information, determining one or more processing policies that associate the traffic flows with the quality of service treatments;

creating and storing one or more mappings of the application information to the quality of service treatments that may be used to generate the quality of service value when the application program generates traffic flows.

2. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of creating and storing information structures comprises the steps of:

creating and storing one or more policy trees, each policy tree comprising one or more policy domains and one or more repositories, each policy domain comprising one or more policy rules that reference one or more conditions and actions that are defined in the repositories and that represent one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices.

3. A method as recited in claim 2, wherein enforcing one of the processing policies comprises:

requesting an operating system function to modify a packet of the traffic flows using a policy element that requests a different operating system function according to the operating system then in use;

at the network device, in response to receiving traffic from the application program that matches the traffic flow type and in response to the operating system function, modifying the packet to activate a quality of service treatment of the network device.

4. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of creating and storing information structures comprises the steps of:

creating and storing one or more policy trees, each policy tree comprising one or more policy domains and one or more repositories, each policy domain comprising one or more policy rules that reference one or more conditions, actions and policers that are defined in the repositories and that represent one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices, and wherein each of the policers represents a flow limit on one or more of the network data flows.

5. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of creating and storing information structures comprises the steps of:

creating and storing one or more policy trees, each policy tree comprising one or more policy domains and one or more repositories, each policy domain comprising one or more policy rules that reference one or more conditions and actions that are defined in the repositories and that represent one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices;

creating and storing one or more definitions of variables and constants in at least one of the repositories.

6. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein the step of creating and storing information structures comprises the steps of:

creating and storing one or more policy trees, each policy tree comprising one or more policy domains and one or more repositories, each policy domain comprising one or more policy rules that reference one or more conditions and actions that are defined in the repositories and that represent one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices;

creating and storing one or more sub-policy objects associated with one of the policies in one of the policy domains, wherein each sub-policy object comprises at least one condition, action, and trigger.

7. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

storing the mappings in a repository that is accessible by the application program;

converting the mappings into one or more settings of the network device;

enforcing one of the processing policies at the network device in response to receiving traffic from the application program that matches the traffic flow type.

8. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising:

creating and storing one or more classes that classify the traffic flows, each of the classes comprising one or more types of traffic flows;

based on the device QoS information and the classes of the traffic flows, determining one or more processing policies that associate the traffic flows with the quality of service treatments.

9. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein receiving application information comprises receiving one or more application code points that represent traffic flow types.

10. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein receiving application information comprises receiving one or more differentiated services codes that represent traffic flow types.

11. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein creating and storing one or more mappings comprises creating and storing one or more policies, concerning network processing of traffic flows generated by the application program, in the repository.

12. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein creating and storing one or more mappings comprises creating and storing one or more policies, concerning network processing of traffic flows generated by the application program, in a policy store that is coupled to the repository.

13. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein creating and storing one or more mappings comprises creating and storing one or more policies, concerning network processing of traffic flows generated by the application program, in a directory.

14. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein creating and storing one or more mappings comprises creating and storing one or more policies, concerning network processing of traffic flows generated by the application program, in a policy server coupled to a Lightweight Directory Access Protocol directory that comprises the repository.

15. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein creating and storing one or more mappings further comprises creating and storing, in the repository, one or more mappings of Application Code Points of the application program to one or more Differentiated Services Code Points of a protocol associated with the network device.

16. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein creating and storing one or more mappings further comprises generating one or more messages in RSVP+ and communicating the messages to the network device.

17. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein receiving application information comprises receiving application information that defines one or more traffic flows generated by an application program, including information identifying one or more points at which an application generates the traffic flows, from a first individual having responsibility for managing enterprise applications in the network.

18. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein receiving device QoS information comprises receiving device QoS information that defines one of more quality of service treatments that the network device may apply to data processed by the network device, from a second individual having responsibility for managing the network.

19. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein determining one or more processing policies comprises creating and storing one or more policy statements in a repository, wherein each policy statement associates a condition of one of the traffic flows, an operator, an operand, and an action comprising one of the quality of service treatments.

20. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein determining one or more processing policies comprises creating and storing one or more policy statements in a repository, wherein each policy statement is represented by a plurality of nodes that represent a condition of one of the traffic flows, an operator, an operand, and an action comprising one of the quality of service treatments.

21. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein determining one or more processing policies comprises creating and storing one or more policy statements in a directory, wherein each policy statement is represented by a plurality of nodes that represent a condition of one of the traffic flows, an operator, an operand, and an action comprising one of the quality of service treatments, and wherein the plurality of nodes is coupled to a root node having a distinguished name in the directory.

22. A method as recited in claim 1, wherein each of the mappings comprises an application code point value stored in associated with a differentiated services code point value.

23. A method of selectively establishing a quality of service value for a network device, comprising the steps of:

receiving application information that defines one or more traffic flows generated by an application program, including information identifying one or more points at which an application generates the traffic flows, from a first individual having responsibility for managing enterprise applications in the network;

receiving device QoS information that defines one or more quality of service treatments that the network device may apply to data processed by the network device, from a second individual having responsibility for managing the network;

based on the device QoS information and the application information, determining one or more processing policies that associate the traffic flows with the quality of service treatments;

creating and storing one or more mappings of the application information to the quality of service treatments that may be used to generate the quality of service value when the application program generates traffic flows.

24. A method as recited in claim 23, further comprising:

storing the mappings in a repository that is accessible by the application program;

converting the mappings into one or more settings of the network device;

enforcing one of the processing policies at the network device in response to receiving traffic from the application program that matches the traffic flow type.

25. A computer-readable medium having recorded thereon one or more sequences of instructions for integrating a network with policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices, wherein execution of the one or more sequences of instructions by one or more processors causes the one or more processors to perform the steps of:

creating and storing information structures representing one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices;

creating and storing application information that associates one or more traffic flows generated by an application program, including information identifying one or more points at which an application generates the traffic flows;

receiving device QoS information that defines one or more quality of service treatments that the network device may apply to data processed by the network device;

based on the device QoS information and the application information, determining one or more processing policies that associate the traffic flows with the quality of service treatments;

creating and storing one or more mappings of the application information to the quality of service treatments that may be used to generate the quality of service value when the application program generates traffic flows.

26. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 25, wherein the step of creating and storing information structures comprises:

creating and storing one or more policy trees, each policy tree comprising one or more policy domains and one or more repositories, each policy domain comprising one or more policy rules that reference one or more conditions and actions that are defined in the repositories and that represent one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices.

27. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 25, wherein creating and storing information structures comprises:

creating and storing one or more policy trees, each policy tree comprising one or more policy domains and one or more repositories, each policy domain comprising one or more policy rules that reference one or more conditions, actions and policers that are defined in the repositories and that represent one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices, and wherein each of the policers represents a flow limit on one of the network data flows.

28. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 25, wherein the step of creating and storing information structures comprises:

creating and storing one or more policy trees, each policy tree comprising one or more policy domains and one or more repositories, each policy domain comprising one or more policy rules that reference one or more conditions and actions that are defined in the repositories and that represent one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices;

creating and storing one or more definitions of variables and constants in at least one of the repositories.

29. A computer-readable medium as recited in claim 25, wherein the step of creating and storing information structures comprises the steps of:

creating and storing one or more policy trees, each policy tree comprising one or more policy domains and one or more repositories, each policy domain comprising one or more policy rules that reference one or more conditions and actions that are defined in the repositories and that represent one or more of the policies representing quality of service treatments of network data flows for network devices;

creating and storing one or more sub-policy objects associated with one of the policies in one of the policy domains, wherein each sub-policy object comprises at least one condition, action, and trigger.