Mapping human-meaningful parameters to network-meaningful parameters to permit user to establish traffic importance in home network

• US 8,583,771 B2
• Filed: 07/01/2008
• Issued: 11/12/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/01/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Cisco Technology, Inc. (Cisco Systems, Inc.)
• Inventors: Huotari, Allen Joseph, Harrington, Kendra, Dattagupta, Siddhartha, Nelson, Franklyn S., Li, Chong Liang
• Primary Examiner(s): Nguyen, Phuoc
• Assistant Examiner(s): ZAND, DAVOUD AMAN
• Application Number:
  US12/166,114
• Publication Number:
  US 20100005170A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,960 Days
• Field of Search: 709/223, 709/224, 370/254
• US Class Current: 709/223
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2809 indicating that an appliance service is present in a home automation network monitoring functionality H04L43/0817; discovery or management thereof, e.g. service location protocol [SLP] or web services, H04L67/51
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/2814 Exchanging control software or macros for controlling appliance services in a home automation network arrangements for maintenance or administration involving configuration of the network and network elements H04L41/08
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/282 based on user interaction within the home receiver circuitry for displaying additional information being controlled by a remote control apparatus H04N21/42204
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2433 Allocation of priorities to traffic types
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/2483 involving identification of individual flows

Abstract

A method of describing highly valued traffic in a home network in terms that are meaningful for a human and that are translated to useful network parameters.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

discovering a plurality of network devices operating in a home network, the network devices communicating with a residential gateway, which provides network connectivity to the network devices;

permitting a user to establish a ranking of the devices in the home network using abstractions, wherein each device receives at least two unique types of traffic and the sources of the at least two unique types of traffic are ordered by importance, wherein data traffic importances are used in corresponding policies that define queues for each type of traffic associated with the network devices; and

implementing the data traffic importances such that traffic associated with the network devices is prioritized amongst each other based on the data traffic importances, and wherein the residential gateway includes a scheduler configured to manage data traffic from the network devices in an intermediate queue and an egress queue, the scheduler being further configured to service priority levels in a weighted fashion.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the abstractions are human-meaningful terms.

3. The method of claim 2, comprising mapping the human-meaningful terms to respective network parameters.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein at least one abstraction is a user established device name and wherein at least one network parameter corresponding to the user-established device name is a port identifier.

5. The method of claim 2, wherein at least one human-meaningful term is a manufacturer-established device mode designation and a respective network parameter corresponding to a model designation is a destination address.

6. The method of claim 2, wherein at least one human-meaningful term is a device capability and a respective network parameter corresponding to a capability of the device is a protocol type.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein a data structure correlating the human-meaningful terms to respective network parameters is stored in the residential gateway communicating with a wide area network.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the scheduler is further configured to service priority levels within the intermediate queue in a weighted fashion, the priority levels being based on the data traffic importances.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the intermediate queue has a greater number of levels than the egress queue.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the intermediate queue has two levels of intermediate queues per level of egress queue.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein a first level of the intermediate queue is designated for traffic identified as important and is considered admitted and a second level of the intermediate queue is designated for traffic identified as not important and is considered not admitted.

12. An apparatus comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one computer-readable medium accessible to the processor, wherein the processor and the computer-readable medium are configured to cooperate in order to;

discover a plurality of network devices operating in a home network, wherein the network devices are ranked and each network device receives at least two unique types of traffic, wherein the sources of the at least two unique types of traffic are ordered by importance, the network devices communicating with the apparatus, which provides network connectivity to the network devices; and

map network parameters and human-meaningful terms, the network parameters being used by a computer to manage data traffic in the home network, wherein data traffic importances are used in corresponding policies that define queues for each type of traffic associated with the network devices, the human-meaningful terms being configured for rendering via a user interface, wherein at least one human-meaningful term is a user-established device name, wherein the data traffic importances are implemented such that traffic associated with the network devices is prioritized amongst each other based on the data traffic importances; and

a scheduler configured to manage data traffic from the network device in an intermediate queue and an egress queue, the scheduler being further configured to service priority levels in a weighted fashion.

13. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the network parameters include device addresses.

14. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the network parameters include protocol type.

15. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the human-meaningful terms include at least one network device name established by a user of the home network.

16. The apparatus of claim 12, wherein the human-meaningful terms include at least one model designation of a network device, the model designation being established by a manufacturer of the network device.

17. A residential gateway (RG) configured to interact with a first network and a home network, the RG comprising:

at least one processor; and

at least one tangible computer-readable medium accessible to the processor and bearing at least one data structure correlating terms that are meaningful to a human to respective network parameters to implement user-defined traffic importance in the home network, wherein the home network contains a plurality of ranked network devices, wherein each device receives at least two unique types of traffic and the sources of the at least two unique types of traffic are ordered by importance, wherein traffic importances are used in corresponding policies that define queues for each type of traffic associated with the network devices, and wherein at least one term is a user-established device name, wherein the traffic importances are implemented such that traffic associated with the network devices is prioritized amongst each other based on the traffic importances, and wherein the residential gateway includes a scheduler configured to manage data traffic from the network devices in an intermediate queue and an egress queue, the scheduler being further configured to service priority levels in a weighted fashion.

18. The RG of claim 17, wherein the terms that are meaningful to a human are presented on a user interface to allow the user to establish the traffic importances.

19. The RG of claim 17, wherein the network parameters include a port identifier.

20. The RG of claim 17, wherein the terms that are meaningful to a human include at least one model designation of a network device, the model designation being established by a manufacturer of the network device.