Patent ID: 10084719

Abstract:
A new approach is proposed that contemplates systems and methods to support hardware-based Quality of Service (QoS) operations, which offloads metering functionalities under OpenFlow protocol to a programmable hardware unit/block/component. The hardware unit supports several hardware implemented ports and each port supports multiple configurable queues for the packet flows through a network switch/chip/system. Specifically, the hardware unit includes a plurality of descriptor queues (DQs) configured to accept requests to send a plurality of packets from one or more CPU cores, and a plurality of condition and schedule modules configured to meter, schedule, and condition the packets through a hierarchy of scheduling queues under one or more metering constraints. The hardware unit is programmable to configure the byte-based and/or packet-based rate-limit for each of the packet flows with a calculated adjustment on allowed variations without requiring complex QoS algorithms to maintain the rate-limits of the flows.