Quality of service packet processing without explicit control negotiations

• US 8,274,908 B2
• Filed: 07/24/2009
• Issued: 09/25/2012
• Est. Priority Date: 07/24/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Original Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Inventors: Hsin, Chih-Fan, Sood, Kapil
• Primary Examiner(s): Pham, Chi
• Assistant Examiner(s): HYUN, SOON D
• Application Number:
  US12/460,838
• Publication Number:
  US 20110019556A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,159 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 370/252
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 65/80 Responding to QoS
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 24/00 Supervisory, monitoring or testing arrangements
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 28/24 Negotiating SLA [Service Level Agreement]; Negotiating QoS [Quality of Service]
• CPC Class Codes: H04W 88/04 adapted for relaying to or from another terminal or user

Abstract

Apparatuses, methods, systems, and computer program products to process QoS packets of wireless traffic without explicit control negotiations are disclosed. An embodiment may comprise a mobile computing device with wireless communications capabilities. The mobile computing device may be a client that associates or connects with an access point or communicates another client device, such as a peripheral device with wireless capabilities. The mobile computing device may monitor wireless packet traffic being transmitted from the mobile computing device. For example, the mobile computing device may monitor the packets being transmitted from a video streaming application to the peripheral device, which may comprise an LCD monitor that has wireless communications capabilities. The mobile computing device may mark the packets of the video stream as QoS packets even though the video streaming application may not do so, and place the marked packets in a QoS queue for priority processing.

Claims

1. A method, comprising:

receiving, by an element of a first station, header data and payload data from a networking application, wherein the payload data is to be transmitted in a packet to a second station via a wireless transmitter of the first station, and wherein the header data specifies that the packet is associated with a first quality of service (QoS) category;

analyzing, by the first station, at least one of the header data or the payload data and at least one of an arrival rate of packets of the networking application received by the first station and an egress rate of packets of the networking application transmitted from the first station to the second station; and

setting, by the first station, at least one bit of the header data based on the analyzing, wherein the setting is to mark the packet and associate the packet with a second QoS category, wherein the priority of the second QoS category is higher than the priority of the first QoS category.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the receiving the header data and the payload data comprises receiving the packet from a third station, wherein the networking application comprises a voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) application, wherein further the third station comprises a server of the Internet and wherein associating the packet with a second QoS category comprises associating the packet with a voice (VO) access category.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the setting the at least one bit of the header data comprises associating the packet with a voice (VO) access category, wherein further the first QoS category comprises a best effort (BE) access category.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising changing power states by the first station based upon the second QoS category and based upon the analyzing the at least one of the arrival rate of packets and the egress rate of packets.

5. A computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable medium having a computer readable program code embodied therewith, the computer readable program code comprising;

computer readable program code configured to perform operations, the operations comprising;

receiving header data and payload data from a networking application, wherein the payload data is to be transmitted in a packet to a station via a wireless transmitter, wherein the header data specifies that the packet is associated with a first quality of service (QoS) category;

analyzing the header data or the payload data to associate the packet with a second QoS category, wherein the priority of the second QoS category is higher than the priority of the first QoS category;

setting at least one bit of the header data based on the analyzing, wherein the setting is to mark the packet and associate the packet with the second QoS category; and

enabling a system of the computer program product to change power states based on at least one of an arrival rate of packets received by the system and an egress rate of packets transmitted from the system.

6. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the setting the at least one bit comprises associating the packet with one of a voice (VO) access category and a video (VI) access category, wherein further the first QoS category comprises a best effort (BE) access category.

7. The computer program product of claim 5, wherein the non-transitory computer readable medium comprises nonvolatile memory of a network interface card (NIC).

8. An apparatus, comprising:

a receiver module to receive, by an element of a first station, header data and payload data from a networking application, wherein the payload data is to be wirelessly transmitted in a packet to a second station, and wherein the header data specifies that the packet is associated with a first quality of service (QoS) category;

an analysis module to analyze by the first station at least one of the header data or the payload data and at least one of an arrival rate of packets of the networking application received by the first station and an egress rate of packets of the networking application transmitted from the first station to the second station; and

a QoS module to mark the packet, based on the analysis, by setting at least one bit of the header data, wherein the marking of the packet changes the association of the packet from the first QoS category to a second QoS category, wherein further the second QoS category is a higher priority category than the first QoS category.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the receiver module comprises dynamic random access memory (DRAM) and the analysis module comprises a microprocessor configured to execute firmware instructions for the analyzing of the at least one of the arrival rate of packets and the egress rate of packets.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein:

the apparatus comprises a mobile computing device; and

the analysis module and the QoS module comprise a prioritization engine of a driver of a wireless communication device of the mobile computing device.

11. The apparatus of claim 10, wherein the analysis module is configured to place the packet in one queue of a plurality of queues according to the second QoS category, wherein further the QoS module is configured to adaptively update entries of a filter based on analyses of the analysis module.

12. The apparatus of claim 11, wherein:

the analysis module is configured to analyze the header data and match the packet with the second QoS category based on at least one traffic classification criterion, and the classification criterion comprises one of a protocol identifier, a source or destination port, packet size, and packet rate.

13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the analysis module is configured to enable the apparatus to enter a power conservation mode based upon the second QoS category.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the analysis module is configured to enable the apparatus to enter a power conservation mode based upon the second QoS category and based upon the analysis of the at least one of the arrival rate of the packets and the egress rate of packets.

15. The apparatus of claim 14, wherein the power conservation mode comprises a Polled Access Mode (PAM), and wherein the receiver module is configured to buffer packets while in the PAM.

16. The apparatus of claim 13, wherein the second QoS category comprises a voice (VO) access category.

17. A system, comprising:

a wireless communication device coupled to an antenna, the antenna configured to transmit a packet to a station of a wireless communication network, wherein the packet comprises header data and payload data;

wherein further a networking application associates the packet to a first quality of service (QoS) category;

dynamic random access memory (DRAM) to store coded instructions of a prioritization engine of a driver of the wireless communication device; and

a processor coupled to the DRAM, the processor to execute the coded instructions to analyze at least one of the header data or the payload data and to mark the packet, wherein the marking is to change an association of the packet from the first QoS category to a second QoS category based on the analysis, wherein the second QoS category comprises a voice (VO) access category.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein:

the processor is further to execute the coded instructions to analyze at least one of an arrival rate of packets of the networking application received by the wireless communication device and an egress rate of packets of the networking application transmitted from the wireless communication device to the station; and

the analysis of the at least one of the header data and payload data and the analysis of the at least one of the arrival rate and the egress rate comprise comparison of the packet to at least one of a number of packet criteria, the packet criteria comprising packet protocol, packet size, a port number, a packet IP address, a packet ingress rate, and a packet egress rate.

19. The system of claim 17, wherein the processor is to switch to a power conservation mode based upon an analysis of at least one of an arrival rate of packets of the networking application received by the wireless communication device and an egress rate of packets of the networking application transmitted from the wireless communication device to the station.

20. The system of claim 19, wherein the processor is to switch to a power conservation mode based upon the VO access category and based upon an analysis of at least one of an arrival rate of packets of the networking application received by the wireless communication device and an egress rate of packets of the networking application transmitted from the wireless communication device to the station.