Patent ID: 8341288

Claim:
In a data network containing one or more data flows, a method for sharing resources allocated to the one or more existing data flows with a new data flow having a source and a destination, the method comprising the steps of: acquiring a signaling message for the new data flow having the source and the destination at an intermediate node located between the source and the destination, wherein the signaling message contains one or more group identifiers (GIDs) each having a GID object associated with the new data flow, wherein the GID object includes a set field that indicates a set of one or more GIDs associated with the new data flow, a class field that holds a value that identifies the GID object as belonging to a particular class and a type field that holds a value that indicates a type of object within the class as one of an Internet Protocol (IP) version 4 or IP version 6 type object; implementing quality of service functions including a classifier to determine a quality of service class, a packet scheduler to determine packet forwarding and an admission control function to determine resource allocation for the data flows; generating an entry for the new data flow in a reservation data structure of the intermediate node; assigning a unique reservation identifier to the entry; searching the reservation data structure to identify one or more entries whose GID set field contains one or more GIDs that are a subset of the GIDs associated with the new data flow and selecting one or more entries from the identified entries that have resources that may be shared with the new data flow; determining if any of the one or more GIDs associated with the new data flow match any of one or more GIDs associated with one or more existing data flows that have a different source and a different destination that the new data flow; if a GID of the one or more GIDs associated with the new data flow matches a GID of the one or more GIDs associated with any of the one or more existing data flows, sharing resources already allocated to those of the one or more existing data flows associated with the matching GID with the new data flow; and if no GID of the one or more GIDs associated with the new data flow matches a GID of the one or more GIDs associated with any of the one or more existing data flows, allocating other resources to accommodate the new data flow.