Patent ID: 7646711
Filing Date: 2010-01-12
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A policing device for monitoring the bandwidth of packets entering into a network flow by flow, judging whether each input packet is a packet within a certain monitored bandwidth, and determining the packet judged as being within the monitored bandwidth to be conformant to a contract and other packets to be non-conformant to the contact, the device comprising: a flow detection unit which detects, based on at least one information item of header information of the input packet, a flow and a class within the flow to which the packet belongs, and determines a flow identifier of the detected flow and a class identifier of the detected class; a bandwidth monitoring table including an entry for each flow identifier, the entry including monitored bandwidth information stating a bandwidth for monitoring packets belonging to the flow packet arrival history information indicating the arrival history of packets for each class within the flow, and bandwidth allocation information for allocating a part of said bandwidth to each class within the flow; and a monitoring result decision unit for judging, at the time a packet is inputted, whether the packet is conformant or non-conformant to the contract on the basis of the monitored bandwidth information in the entry corresponding to the flow identifier, and the bandwidth allocation information and the arrival history information specified in the entry by the class identifier of the packet, wherein a flow is a stream of packets of a plurality of classes, and the flow is transmitted between a source and a destination while the source includes a plurality of users.