Automatic discovery and enforcement of service level agreement settings
First Claim
1. A method of automatically detecting service level agreement (SLA) settings comprising committed information rate (CIR) and excess information rate (EIR) settings for a data path originating at a data source and terminating at a data sink, said data path carrying user packets and comprising traffic shaping devices configured with said CIR and EIR settings in accordance with said SLA, said method comprisinggenerating synthetic packets, different from the user packets, on a said data path at a level that exceeds the CIR and EIR settings configured for the traffic shaping devices in said data path, said generating used to accelerate detection of actual values for CIR and EIR by triggering the traffic shaping devices in said data path to enforce, in accordance with said SLA, the CIR and EIR settings configured for said traffic shaping devices;
- collecting a plurality of traffic samples from said data path during a sampling period that is long enough to allow the collection of at least two valid traffic samples, wherein each a valid traffic sample corresponds to an amount of user packets measured between two consecutive losses of synthetic packets; and
determining from the collected traffic samples the actual CIR and EIR values enforced by said traffic shaping devices, wherein said determining comprisessetting the value of a CIR associated with said sampling period to zero,setting the value of an EIR associated with said sampling period to zero, andanalyzing the collected valid traffic samples obtained for said sampling period.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method of automatically detecting the service level agreement settings in an Ethernet virtual circuit (EVC) carrying user packets comprises generating synthetic packets different from the user packets, on a data path in the EVC at a level sufficiently high to saturate the EVC. This accelerates the detection of actual effective values for the Committed Information Rate (CIR) and the Excess Information Rate (EIR) by triggering traffic shaping devices in the data path to enforce the CIR and EIR settings configured for those devices. A plurality of traffic samples are collected from the data path during a sampling period that is long enough to allow the collection of at least two valid traffic samples, where a valid traffic sample is the amount of user packets measured between two consecutive losses of synthetic packets. The CIR and EIR values enforced by the traffic shaping devices are determined from the collected samples.
16 Citations
20 Claims
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1. A method of automatically detecting service level agreement (SLA) settings comprising committed information rate (CIR) and excess information rate (EIR) settings for a data path originating at a data source and terminating at a data sink, said data path carrying user packets and comprising traffic shaping devices configured with said CIR and EIR settings in accordance with said SLA, said method comprising
generating synthetic packets, different from the user packets, on a said data path at a level that exceeds the CIR and EIR settings configured for the traffic shaping devices in said data path, said generating used to accelerate detection of actual values for CIR and EIR by triggering the traffic shaping devices in said data path to enforce, in accordance with said SLA, the CIR and EIR settings configured for said traffic shaping devices; -
collecting a plurality of traffic samples from said data path during a sampling period that is long enough to allow the collection of at least two valid traffic samples, wherein each a valid traffic sample corresponds to an amount of user packets measured between two consecutive losses of synthetic packets; and determining from the collected traffic samples the actual CIR and EIR values enforced by said traffic shaping devices, wherein said determining comprises setting the value of a CIR associated with said sampling period to zero, setting the value of an EIR associated with said sampling period to zero, and analyzing the collected valid traffic samples obtained for said sampling period. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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14. A method of automatically detecting service level agreement (SLA) settings comprising committed information rate (CIR) and excess information rate (EIR) settings for a data path originating at a data source and terminating at a data sink, said data path carrying user packets and comprising traffic shaping devices configured with said CIR and EIR settings in accordance with said SLA, said method comprising
generating synthetic packets, different from the user packets, on said data path at a level that exceeds the CIR and EIR settings configured for the traffic shaping devices in said data path, said generating used to accelerate detection of actual values for CIR and EIR by triggering the traffic shaping devices in said data path to enforce, in accordance with said SLA, the CIR and EIR settings configured for said traffic shaping devices; -
collecting a plurality of traffic samples from said data path during a sampling period that is long enough to allow the collection of at least two valid traffic samples, wherein each valid traffic sample corresponds to an amount of user packets measured between two consecutive losses of synthetic packets; further wherein each of said valid traffic samples begins on a corresponding first packet loss indication and terminates on a corresponding second packet loss indication and includes a count of the total number of bytes received for the period between a pair of successive packet loss indications, wherein said count of the total number of bytes received is a sum of lengths in bytes of all user packets and synthetic packets received in said valid sample; and determining from the collected traffic samples the actual CIR and EIR values enforced by said traffic shaping devices. - View Dependent Claims (15, 16, 17, 18)
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19. A method of automatically detecting service level agreement (SLA) settings comprising committed information rate (CIR) and excess information rate (EIR) settings for a data path originating at a data source and terminating at a data sink, said data path carrying user packets and comprising traffic shaping devices configured with said CIR and EIR settings in accordance with said SLA, said method comprising
generating synthetic packets, different from the user packets, on said data path at a level that exceeds the CIR and EIR settings configured for the traffic shaping devices in said data path, said generating used to accelerate detection of actual values for CIR and EIR by triggering the traffic shaping devices in said data path to enforce, in accordance with said SLA, the CIR and EIR settings configured for said traffic shaping devices; -
collecting a plurality of traffic samples from said data path during a sampling period that is long enough to allow the collection of at least two valid traffic samples, wherein each valid traffic sample corresponds to an amount of user packets measured between two consecutive losses of synthetic packets; further wherein each of said valid traffic samples begins on a corresponding first packet loss indication and terminates on a corresponding second packet loss indication and includes a count of the total number of bytes received for the period between a pair of successive packet loss indications, wherein said synthetic packets include sequence numbers, and at least one of the corresponding first and second packet loss indications is determined by comparing the sequence number in a synthetic packet against an expected sequence number; and determining from the collected traffic samples the actual CIR and EIR values enforced by said traffic shaping devices. - View Dependent Claims (20)
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Specification