Apparatus for ethernet traffic aggregation of radio links

• US 8,611,356 B2
• Filed: 11/13/2009
• Issued: 12/17/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/13/2009
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Exalt Wireless Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Exalt Communications Incorporated
• Inventors: Yu, Jungji, Smidth, Peter, Zhang, Yongmin
• Primary Examiner(s): PASIA, REDENTOR M
• Application Number:
  US12/618,666
• Publication Number:
  US 20110116443A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,495 Days
• Field of Search: 370/229, 370/230, 370/235, 370/252, 370/392, 370/394
• US Class Current: 370/394
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 12/413 with random access, e.g. carrier-sense multiple-access with collision detection [CSMA-CD]
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/10 Flow control; Congestion control
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/34 ensuring sequence integrity, e.g. using sequence numbers

Abstract

A multi-radio device system includes a set of sending radio devices and a set of receiving radio devices. Among the sending radio devices is a load-balancing radio device that receives data packets from an originating network. The load-balancing radio device labels data packets with sequence numbers and distributes the labeled data packets among the sending radio devices based on the relative capacities and statuses of those sending radio devices. The sending radio devices transmit the labeled data packets to the receiving radio devices. The receiving radio devices send the labeled data packets to an aggregating radio device within the set of receiving radio devices. The aggregating radio device uses the sequence numbers to ensure that the data packets are forwarded to a destination network in the correct order, extracting original data packets from the labeled data packets before forwarding the original data packets on toward the destination network.

Claims

1. An aggregating radio device comprising:

a plurality of queues, wherein each queue of the plurality of queues corresponds to a different receiving device of a plurality of receiving devices, wherein each receiving device of the plurality of receiving devices receives data from a different transmitting device of a plurality of transmitting devices;

wherein each device in the plurality of receiving devices is different than each device in the plurality of transmitting devices;

a first determiner that determines whether each queue of the plurality of queues contains at least one data packet and none of the data packets in the plurality of queues indicates an expected next sequence number;

a dequeuer which, in response to a determination by the first determiner that each queue of the plurality of queues contains at least one data packet and none of the data packets in the plurality of queues indicates the expected next sequence number, removes, from one queue of the plurality of queues, a particular data packet that contains a particular sequence number that is closest to the expected next sequence number among sequence numbers that are indicated by data packets in the plurality of queues;

a processor that processes the particular data packet; and

a sender that sends at least a portion of the particular data packet toward a destination that is indicated within the particular data packet.

2. The aggregating radio device of claim 1, wherein:

the processor decapsulates, from a payload field of the particular data packet, an original data packet that indicates the destination through a destination address field of the original data packet; and

the sender sends the original data packet toward a device that is indicated within the destination address field.

3. The aggregating radio device of claim 2, wherein:

each queue of the plurality of queues corresponds to a separate port of a plurality of ports of the aggregating radio device;

each port of the plurality of ports of the aggregating radio device is connected to a different receiving device of the plurality of receiving devices; and

for each particular queue of the plurality of queues, said each particular queue becomes populated only with data packets that are received by a particular receiving device, of the plurality of receiving devices, which is connected to a particular port, of the plurality of ports, which corresponds to said each particular queue.

4. The aggregating radio device of claim 1, wherein:

a radio device receives a second data packet from a switch to which the radio device is connected;

the radio device determines whether a MAC address specified within the second data packet matches a particular MAC address, from a set of reserved MAC addresses, that is assigned to the radio device and to no other radio devices that are connected to the switch; and

the radio device only transmits the second data packet over radio waves if the MAC address specified within the second data packet matches the particular MAC address that is assigned to the radio device.

5. The aggregating radio device of claim 1, wherein a load-balancing device encapsulates the particular data packet within an encapsulating data packet that indicates a MAC address of a particular radio device that (a) is connected to a switch that is interposed between the load-balancing device and the particular radio device and (b) was selected by the load-balancing device to transmit the particular data packet over radio waves;

and wherein the load-balancing device sends the encapsulating data packet to said switch.

6. The aggregating radio device of claim 1, wherein each receiving device of the plurality of receiving devices that are connected to the aggregating radio device is a radio device that receives data packets over radio waves from one of the plurality of transmitting devices.

7. The aggregating radio device of claim 1, further comprising:

a timer which, in response the expected next sequence number and (b) at least one empty queue of the plurality of queues of the aggregating radio device does not currently contain any data packet, causes the aggregating radio device to wait for a specified period of time for the data packet that indicates the expected next sequence number to arrive in said empty queue;

and

a second determiner that determines, after the aggregating radio device has waited for the specified period of time, whether any queue of the plurality of queues contains the data packet that indicates the expected next sequence number; and

wherein the aggregating radio device, in response to a second determination, by the second determiner, that no queue of the plurality of queues contains the data packet that indicates the expected next sequence number after waiting for the specified period of time, (a) removes a second data packet from one queue of the plurality of queues, (b) decapsulates an original data packet from within the second data packet, and (c) sends the original data packet towards a second destination that is indicated by the original data packet.

8. The aggregating radio device of claim 7, wherein:

after the aggregating radio device has removed the second data packet from the one queue, and in response to the aggregating radio device determining that no queue of the plurality of queues contains a subsequent data packet indicating a subsequent expected next sequence number, the aggregating radio device determines whether said empty queue has contained any data packet since said aggregating device waited for said specified period of time; and

in response to determining that said empty queue has not contained any data packet since said aggregating radio device waited for said specified period of time, said aggregating radio device (1) does not wait for said subsequent data packet to arrive in any queue of the plurality of queues and (2) removes a data packet other than said subsequent data packet from a queue of the plurality of queues.

9. The aggregating radio device of claim 1, further comprising:

a receiver that receives a second data packet at the aggregating radio device;

wherein a determiner determines whether a priority level indicated by the second data packet is a specified priority level; and

wherein the aggregating radio device, in response to a determination that the priority level is the specified priority level, places the second data packet into a particular queue of the plurality of queues;

wherein the particular queue does not contain any data packets that are not of the specified priority level.

10. The aggregating radio device of claim 1, further comprising:

a receiver that receives a second data packet at the aggregating radio device;

wherein a determiner determines whether a priority level indicated by the second data packet is a specified priority level; and

wherein the aggregating radio device, in response to determining that the priority level is not the specified priority level, sends at least a portion of the second data packet toward a destination indicated within the second data packet without placing the second data packet into any queue of the plurality of queues at any time.

11. The aggregating radio device of claim 1, wherein:

a load-balancing device stores a mapping between (a) a particular quality of service priority level and (b) at least one of;

(1) a MAC address, (2) a port identifier, and (3) a VLAN priority;

the load-balancing device is configured to load-balance only the particular quality of service priority level; and

the particular quality of service priority level is one of a plurality of different quality of service priority levels, each level of which is mapped to a different set of characteristics.

12. The aggregating radio device of claim 1, wherein the dequeuer removes the particular data packet from the one queue of the plurality of queues without waiting a specified period of time after the first determiner makes the determination.

13. A method comprising:

determining whether each queue of a plurality of queues, within an aggregating device, contains at least one data packet and whether none of the data packets in any of the plurality of queues indicates an expected next sequence number;

in response to determining that each queue of the plurality of queues contains at least one data packet and that none of the data packets in any of the plurality of queues indicates the expected next sequence number, removing, from a particular queue of the plurality of queues, a particular data packet that contains a particular sequence number that is closest to the expected next sequence number among sequence numbers that are indicated by data packets in the plurality of queues;

processing the particular data packet; and

sending, at least a portion of the particular data packet toward a destination that is indicated within the particular data packet;

wherein the method is performed by one or more computing devices.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein:

processing the particular data packet comprises decapsulating, from a payload field of the particular data packet, an original data packet that indicates the destination through a destination address field of the original data packet; and

sending the portion of the particular data packet comprises sending the original data packet toward a device that is indicated within the destination address field.

15. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

in response to a determining that (a) no queue of the plurality of queues contains a data packet that indicates a second expected next sequence number and (b) at least one empty queue of the plurality of queues does not currently contain any data packet, causing the aggregating device to wait for a specified period of time for the data packet that indicates the second expected next sequence number to arrive in said empty queue; and

determining, after the aggregating device has waited for the specified period of time, whether any queue of the plurality of queues contains the data packet that indicates the second expected next sequence number; and

in response to determining that no queue of the plurality of queues contains the data packet that indicates the second expected next sequence number after waiting for the specified period of time, (a) removes a second data packet from one queue of the plurality of queues, (b) decapsulates an original data packet from within the second data packet, and (c) sends the original data packet towards a second destination that is indicated by the original data packet.

16. The method of claim 15, further comprising:

after removing the second data packet from the one queue and in response to determining that no queue of the plurality of queues contains a subsequent data packet indicating a subsequent expected next sequence number, determining whether said empty queue has contained any data packet since said aggregating device waited for said specified period of time; and

in response to determining that said empty queue has not contained any data packet since said aggregating device waited for said specified period of time, removing a data packet other than said subsequent data packet from a queue of the plurality of queues without waiting for said subsequent data packet to arrive in any queue of the plurality of queues.

17. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving a second data packet;

determining whether a priority level indicated by the second data packet is a specified priority level; and

in response to a determining that the priority level is the specified priority level, causing the second data packet to be placed into a certain queue of the plurality of queues;

wherein the certain queue does not contain any data packets that are not of the specified priority level.

18. The method of claim 13, further comprising:

receiving a second data packet;

determining whether a priority level indicated by the second data packet is a specified priority level; and

in response to determining that the priority level is not the specified priority level, sending at least a portion of the second data packet toward a destination that is indicated within the second data packet without placing the second data packet into any queue of the plurality of queues.

19. The method of claim 13, wherein removing the particular data packet from the particular queue is performed without waiting a specified period of time after the determining.

20. A multi-radio communication system comprising:

a load-balancing device that receives a plurality of data packets and associates, with each data packet of the plurality of data packets, a sequence number;

a plurality of transmitting radio devices, each of which receives a different set of data packets from the load-balancing device;

a plurality of receiving radio devices, each of which receives the different set of data packets from a transmitting radio device of the plurality of transmitting radio devices;

an aggregating device that (1) receives the different set of data packets from each receiving radio device of the plurality of receiving radio devices and (2) contains a plurality of queues, wherein each queue of the plurality of queues corresponds to a different receiving radio device of the plurality of receiving radio devices;

wherein the aggregating device is configured to determine whether all of the plurality of queues contain at least one data packet and none of the data packets in any of the plurality of queues indicates an expected next sequence number;

wherein the aggregating device is configured to remove, from a particular queue of the plurality of queues, a particular data packet that contains a particular sequence number that is closest to the expected next sequence number among sequence numbers that are indicated by data packets in the plurality of queues in response to determining that all of the plurality of queues contain at least one data packet and that none of the data packets in any of the plurality of queues indicates the expected next sequence number.