Multiplexing of control and data over an HTTP connection

• US 20050135418A1
• Filed: 12/16/2004
• Published: 06/23/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 12/19/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Solace Corp.
• Original Assignee: Solace Systems, Inc. (United Kingdom)
• Inventors: Barnes, Martin, Ashton, Peter, Bertin, Greg, Pochopsky, David, Burwell, Wayne, Betts, Craig
• Granted Patent: US 7,486,698 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 370/469
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 45/00 Routing or path finding of packets in data switching networks routing or path finding in wireless networks H04W40/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 67/02 based on web technology, e.g. hypertext transfer protocol [HTTP]

Abstract

A method for exchanging control and customer data between network element in a communications network involves establishing a virtual connection between the routers, and exchanging the control and customer data over an http layer.

Claims

1. A method of passing application protocol streams between network elements in a data communications network, comprising establishing a virtual connection between said network elements, establishing an HTTP layer within said virtual connection;

and multiplexing said application protocol streams over said HTTP layer.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein said network elements are XML routers, and said network is a content based network.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein said application protocol streams control application sub-systems within a network element, and said application sub-systems are identified using HTTP URI arguments.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein said application protocol streams control application sub-systems within a network element, and said application sub-systems are identified using “

absolute path”

portions of HTTP URIs.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein said application protocol streams control application sub-systems within a network element, and said application sub-systems are identified using HTTP header fields.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein said virtual connection is a TCP connection.

7. The method of claim 2, wherein said protocol streams comprise a first data flow connecting an XLSP protocol in each XML router, a second flow connecting an XSMP protocol in each router, and a third flow connecting a Data Plane Forwarding Engine in each router.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein said application protocol streams are multiplexed over a single TCP connection, and said application protocol streams are prioritized via queue servicing.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein each of said application protocol streams is mapped onto an output queue, and wherein more than one application protocol stream can be mapped onto the same output queue.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein said output queues are serviced using a weighted round robin scheme, with each queue being allocated a different weight.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein said queues are assigned weights M:

M such that the bandwidth received by the control queue is M/M+N.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein said application protocol streams comprise control plane and data plane traffic, and said control and data plane traffic is separated into separate output queues.

13. A router for use in a data communications network, wherein said router is configured to establish a virtual connection with other routers in the network, establish an HTTP layer within said virtual connection;

and multiplex application protocol streams over said HTTP layer.

14. The router of claim 13, which is an XML router for use in an XML content based network.

15. The router of claim 13, further comprising a scheduler for imposing a queueing discipline on outbound traffic over said HTTP layer.

16. The router of claim 15, wherein said scheduler is a weighted round robin scheduler.

17. The router of claim 13, wherein said application protocol streams control application sub-systems within a network element, and said router is configured to identify application sub-systems using HTTP URI arguments.

18. The router of claim 13, wherein said application protocol streams control application sub-systems within a network element, and said router is configured to identify application sub-systems using “

absolute path”

portions of HTTP URIs.

19. The router of claim 13, wherein said application protocol streams control application sub-systems within a network element, and said router is configured to identify application sub-systems using HTTP header fields.