Patent Application: US-79433706-A

Abstract:
packet forwarding apparatus has an input for receiving packets ; a packet classifier arranged in operation to read a class indication in received packets and in dependence thereon to pass packets to a class - based policer associated with the class indicated ; a plurality of class - based policers , each operable to assign a provisional indication to packets of the associated class in response to a measure of the load presented by packets of the class exceeding a predetermined class - based threshold ; a multi - class policer operable to receive provisionally - indicated packets processed by the class - based policers , and to assign a congestion indication to packets having the provisional indication in response to congestion arising at the packet forwarding apparatus ; and an output for presenting packets processed by the multi - class policer for onward transmission from the apparatus .

Description:
the embodiment of the invention that we describe here is an extension of the virtual queue congestion detection mechanism , and is designed to enable distinct minimum bandwidth guarantees to be provided for each of two or more traffic classes . according to the embodiment , each traffic class has associated with it a corresponding counter which filters packets of that class into what can be thought of as a virtual queue . the counter acts as a form of continuous rate token bucket . if the traffic class has low priority ( or equal priority to other classes ) then the counter filters out packets of that class up to rate m ( b ), which is the rate by which the counter is incremented ( the token rate ). specifically , the counter is decremented by the size of each new packet provided that the counter would not then become negative . the packet which thereby receives a token is not then offered to the virtual queue and receives no congestion indication . if the counter would become negative then the counter is not decremented and the packet does not receive a token . the packet is then offered to the virtual queue , and it may receive a congestion indication depending on the size of the virtual queue . the counter is incremented at rate m ( b ). note that packets do not queue to receive tokens . this mechanism ensures that the traffic class has access to a minimum bandwidth m ( b ) without receiving congestion indication . in addition , the output rate of the virtual queue is reduced by m ( b ), and this ensures that if the total rate of other traffic classes approaches l − m ( b ) ( where l is the configured rate ) then the virtual queue will saturate , and those classes exceeding their minimum bandwidth will receive congestion indication . fig3 illustrates this mechanism in the case of an arbitrary number of traffic classes having equal priority . of course the total guaranteed bandwidth m ( b1 )+ . . . + m ( bn ) should be less than the configured rate l , and the virtual queue rate is reduced by a further small amount delta in order to ensure early marking . consider now the case where one traffic class g has priority over all other classes through the use of a priority queueing scheme , as in fig1 . in the queueing scheme of fig1 , high priority packets are sent before low priority packets . additionally when the queueing space is full newly arriving high priority packets are allowed to pre - empt waiting low priority packets . in this case the low priority traffic can be allowed to share the minimum bandwidth guaranteed for high priority traffic , since the queue management ensures that high priority packets are unaffected by the presence of low priority packets . this is achieved as follows . a counter with token rate m ( g ) is used to filter high priority packets into the virtual queue . however all high priority packets are offered to the virtual queue whether or not they receive tokens , but those packets which do receive tokens are not allowed to receive any congestion indication . the packets receiving tokens are still added to the virtual queue in order to contribute to the probability of congestion indication seen by other packets . finally , the virtual queue output rate is not in this case reduced by m ( g ). this mechanism is illustrated in fig4 for the case of one high priority class g and one low priority class b . if the virtual queue signals congestion via ecn marking ( rather than packet drops ) then we assume that the minimum bandwidth guarantees are assured through appropriate traffic reaction to marking . in the case of best - effort traffic , flows should be rate - adaptive in response to ecn marking . in the case of guaranteed traffic , connection admission control should be applied , for example by rejecting new requests when the accumulated end - to - end marking rate exceeds a given threshold . detailed description of an implementation scenario — one “ guaranteed ” class and one “ best - effort ” class we consider the gqs scenario illustrated in fig2 . routers within the core gqs region apply ecn marking using a virtual queue , and use priority queueing with pre - emption to give absolute precedence to packets in guaranteed flows , as in fig1 . best - effort flows are rate - adaptive in response to ecn marking . gateway routers apply admission control to demands for new guaranteed flows on the basis of the measured ecn marking rate on existing guaranteed flows across the relevant inter - gateway path . using the simple virtual queue arrangement illustrated in fig1 , when there is competition for resources the balance between guaranteed flows and best - effort flows is determined by relative demand ( and by the marking rate threshold which triggers admission control , as set by the network operator ). an increase in guaranteed demand normally causes best - effort traffic to back - off . however , very strong best - effort demand could result in guaranteed traffic being denied access . in principle it is possible for either class of traffic to completely push out the other class — there is no guaranteed minimum bandwidth for either traffic class . the presently described embodiment aims to change the virtual queue marking algorithm in order to achieve the following traffic behaviour . suppose that g and b are the levels of demand for “ guaranteed ” and “ best - effort ” traffic respectively on a route outgoing from a router , and that m ( g ) and m ( b ) are the minimum bandwidth levels to be guaranteed for each class . fig5 illustrates regions of different relative demand , with guaranteed traffic demand increasing from the top line downwards and best - effort traffic demand increasing from the bottom line upwards . in region 1 , best - effort demand is within its minimum guaranteed level m ( b ). in region 2 , guaranteed traffic demand is within its minimum guaranteed level m ( g ). in region 3 , both traffic classes exceed their minimum bandwidth guaranteed levels . several different traffic load scenarios are illustrated , in each case the solid line represents guaranteed traffic load and the dashed line represents best - effort traffic load . scenario 1 : g & gt ; m ( g ) and b & gt ; m ( b ) but no congestion so neither traffic class is constrained . scenario 2 : g & gt ; m ( g ) and b & gt ; m ( b ) with congestion . then g may be constrained by admission control and b reduces its rate in response to congestion marking , with a balance that depends on relative demand and on the marking threshold used to trigger admission control . scenario 3 : g & lt ; m ( g ). no admission control is applied to new guaranteed flows whatever the level of best - effort demand . best - effort traffic can use any spare capacity not used by guaranteed flows . if there is high best - effort demand then best - effort traffic is forced to back off by high congestion marking . also , guaranteed packets have precedence over best - effort packets through the use of priority queueing with pre - emption in the outgoing router buffer . scenario 4 : b & lt ; m ( b ). best - effort traffic does not receive congestion marking whatever the level of demand from guaranteed traffic . the guaranteed traffic level is constrained through admission control to g & lt ; l − m ( b ), where l is the configured rate of the outgoing link . this is necessary to ensure the minimum bandwidth guarantee for best - effort traffic . the shaded area indicates the guaranteed traffic demand that is rejected by admission control . this behaviour can be assured by the virtual queue marking mechanism according to the embodiment of the invention , having one token counter for guaranteed traffic and one token counter for best - effort traffic , as follows : the marking mechanism comprises a virtual queue , whose length determines the probability that a packet is congestion - marked , and two counters which filter the input to the virtual queue ( see fig4 ). note that the virtual queue is also simply a counter . counter — 1 is incremented at rate m ( g ) provided it does not exceed size bucket — 1 , and is decremented by the size of each arriving g - packet ( which thereby receives a token ) provided the counter does not become negative . every g - packet is also offered simultaneously to the virtual queue ( counter_v ), but those packets which received tokens by counter — 1 are not allowed to be marked . this ensures that guaranteed traffic receives no congestion marking if its rate is less than m ( g ). counter — 2 is incremented at rate m ( b ) provided it does not exceed size bucket — 2 , and is decremented by the size of each arriving b - packet ( which thereby receives a token ) provided the counter does not become negative . b - packets which do not receive tokens are simultaneously offered to the virtual queue ( counter_v ) and can be marked . b - packets which receive tokens are not offered to the virtual queue and are not marked . this ensures that best - effort traffic receives no congestion marking if its rate is less than m ( b ). the virtual queue ( counter_v ) is incremented by the size of each g - packet and b - packet offered to it provided the counter does not exceed vq_limit . any markable packet which is offered to the virtual queue but not added to it ( because vq_limit is exceeded ) is marked . also a red - type marking algorithm is applied whereby markable packets added to the virtual queue are marked probabilistically according to the queue size , e . g . with probability linearly increasing from 0 to 1 as the queue size varies between two thresholds min_thresh and max_thresh . the virtual queue output rate is set to l − m ( b )− delta , where l is the outgoing configured rate and delta is a small margin which ensures early marking . an example implementation of the mechanism as pseudocode is given below . if counter — 1 & gt ; packet_size then ( counter — 1 = counter — 1 − packet_size ; packet receives token ) else ( packet does not receive token ) if counter — 2 & gt ; packet_size then ( counter — 2 = counter — 2 − packet_size ; packet receives token ) else ( packet does not receive token ; offer packet to virtual queue ) if counter_v + packet_size & lt ; vq_limit then { counter_v = counter_v + packet_size ; if ( packet has no token ) and rand & lt ;( counter_v − min_thresh )/( max_thresh − min_thresh ) then mark packet } else ( if packet has no token then mark packet ) with reference to fig6 , an alternative version of a two - class system will be briefly described . this scheme is designed to differentiate the congestion marking probabilities of the two traffic classes in a way that better reflects the impact of each traffic class on the service received by the other class . it differs from the above scenario in that only “ high priority ” packets , such as “ guaranteed ” packets , are placed in the virtual queue , not “ low priority ” packets , such as best - effort packets , but the marking algorithms are changed accordingly . it is still possible to use the filtering approach to provide minimum bandwidth guarantees . as shown in fig6 , the virtual queue is used only for high priority packets . low priority packets are marked according to the size of q ( i ), the number of low priority packets in the outgoing buffer . high priority packets are marked according to counter_v + q ( i ), i . e . the sum of the virtual queue size and the size of the outgoing low priority packet queue . a minimum bandwidth guarantee m ( g ) is provided for high priority traffic by use of a token bucket filter with corresponding reduction of m ( g ) in the virtual queue output rate . a minimum bandwidth guarantee m ( b ) is provided for low priority traffic by means of a further reduction of m ( b ) in the virtual queue output rate . the operation of the mechanism assumes that the sum of the minimum bandwidths guaranteed for both traffic classes is substantially less than the configured rate , i . e . m ( g )+ m ( b )& lt ;& lt ; l . we might instead want to have m ( g )+ m ( b )= l , in which case guaranteed traffic has a guaranteed minimum bandwidth level which it is also not allowed to exceed . this should be achieved through segregation of capacity rather than through congestion marking . there are two circumstances where admission control based on congestion measurements may have a difficulty . these circumstances arise when the guaranteed traffic load is high — filling most of the link capacity . the first problem arises when there is a new demand for a guaranteed flow requiring high bandwidth . the second problem arises if guaranteed flows have variable bit - rate , in which case existing flows may increase their rate mid - session and still expect guaranteed service . in both cases the solution normally requires leaving spare capacity beyond the point at which admission control is applied . this can be achieved by using a relatively large value of delta by which the virtual queue output rate is reduced in fig3 and 4 . preferred embodiments of the invention provide an alternative more efficient solution by which some new guaranteed flows , and existing variable bit - rate flows , are allowed to use some of the minimum bandwidth reserved for best - effort traffic . in scenario 4 of fig5 this means that admission control normally stops guaranteed traffic from using capacity in region 1 , but some high - bandwidth flows may be allowed to use some of that capacity when they commence , and variable bit - rate flows might also use some of that capacity when they have high - rate bursts . this does of course mean that best - effort traffic no longer has a firm guarantee of minimum available bandwidth . a . s . tanenbaum , “ computer networks ”, third edition , pp 379 - 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