Method of allocating resources in a telecommunications network

• US 6,556,548 B1
• Filed: 08/03/1999
• Issued: 04/29/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 08/07/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: RPX Clearinghouse LLC (RPX Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Nortel Networks Limited (Nortel Networks Corporation)
• Inventors: Sabesan, Subramanian, Biddiscombe, Martin, Kirkby, Paul Anthony
• Primary Examiner(s): Ton, Dang
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wilson, Robert W.
• Application Number:
  US09/368,275
• Time in Patent Office: 1,365 Days
• Field of Search: 370/95.1, 370/230, 370/232, 370/233, 370/234, 370/322, 370/395.2, 370/468, 370/331, 370/355, 370/348, 379/114-1-1, 455/13.1
• US Class Current: 370/322
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/15 in relation to multipoint traffic arrangements for broadcast or multicast in data networks H04L12/18
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/24 Traffic characterised by specific attributes, e.g. priority or QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/70 Admission control; Resource allocation
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/765 triggered by the end-points
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/781 Centralised allocation of resources
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/783 Distributed allocation of resources, e.g. bandwidth brokers
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/808 User-type aware
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/83 based on usage prediction

Abstract

The Invention provides a distributed resource allocation Method. The distributed resource allocation method is based on the concept of proportional fairness. In this method, users express their willingnesses to pay to the local distributed controller which is associated with those users. The bandwidth allocated to each user is determined by the local controller with which they are associated and the allocation takes into account the relative demands on all the resources in the network and the time taken for those demands to reach the distributed local controllers. The distributed controllers each use only locally available information at their respective nodes, but take into account the delays between nodes. The locally available resource (i.e. bandwidth) is divided in proportion to the willingnesses to pay expressed by the various users entering their particular node. On a ring (and in other networks where the only place that traffic streams are multiplexed is at the periphery) this guarantees that no data will be lost (due to cell/packet collision) once it has been launched.

Claims

1. A method of dynamically allocating shared resources in a telecommunications network comprising a plurality of resources, comprising the step of:

for each resource providing a controller to allocate shares in said resource to users that will utilise said resource, said shares being allocated on the basis of the available capacity of the resource at a point in time and users'"'"' willingness to pay (WtP) values at said point in time, the available capacity of the resource being the actual capacity less the through traffic capacity at said point in time, wherein each controller allocates at each of a series of points in time the WtP values of each of the users making requests for resources at said controller between the resources needed to satisfy said requests for resources by said users by setting for each combination of resource and user the proportion of that user'"'"'s WtP value to be allocated to that resource as being equal to the latest demand by all users for that resource known to the controller divided by the sum of the latest demands by all users for all resources needed to satisfy that user'"'"'s request for resources known to the controller.

2. A method as claimed in claim 1, wherein each controller calculates at each of said points of time the relative demand on its associated resource by summing the total demand made on that resource by ingress traffic and the total demand made on the resource by through traffic divided by the actual capacity of the resource.

3. A method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the controller communicates its calculated relative demand information to other controllers.

4. A method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the controller communicates its calculated relative demand information to other controllers at each of said points of time.

5. A method as claimed in claim 4, wherein each controller recalculates at each of said points of time the relative demand for its associated resource from the updated WtP proportions and communicates the recalculated relative demand information to the other controllers.