Patent ID: 7225271
Filing Date: 2007-05-29
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. An intermediate network device for use in a computer network having a plurality of entities configured to issue requests to reserve network resources for use by traffic flows, the reservation requests specifying one or more flow parameters, the intermediate network device comprising: a traffic scheduler having one or more network resources for use in forwarding network traffic received at the device at different rates; a classification engine configured to identify network messages belonging to respective traffic flows based upon predefined criteria; a resource reservation engine in communicating relationship with the traffic scheduler and the classification engine, the resource reservation engine including a flow analyzer that is configured to apply one or more sets of predefined heuristics that are accessible by the flow analyzer to the one or more flow parameters specified in the reservation requests to determine a type of traffic of the given traffic flow, the flow parameters including a token bucket rate, a token bucket size, and a peak data rate, the one or more sets of heuristics including heuristics configured to compare the token bucket rate, token bucket size, and a ratio of the peak data rate to the token bucket rate each with a different programmed constant descriptive of a particular type of traffic, to determine the type of traffic independent of any marking values in packets of the given traffic flow that identify traffic type, and the flow analyzer further configured to select a queue and/or a queue servicing algorithm for assignment to the traffic flow corresponding to the reservation request.