Patent Document

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     A. Field of the Invention 
     Concepts consistent with the invention relate generally to networking, and more particularly, to segmentation and reassembly (SAR) techniques for data units. 
     B. Description of Related Art 
     Segmentation and reassembly (SAR) is the process of breaking a data unit, such as a packet, into smaller units, such as ATM cells, and later reassembling them into the proper order. Alternatively, a SAR system may receive ATM cells, reassemble the cells into packets, process the packets, and then break the processed packets into cells for re-transmission. 
     SAR systems are commonly used in networking environments. A router, for instance, may receive ATM cells over a network and reassemble the cells into packets. The packets may then be processed by, for example, analyzing each packet to determine its next destination address and output port. The router may then segment the packets back into fixed lengths cells, which are then transmitted on the network. 
     In a network router, multiple traffic flows may compete for limited network bandwidth. The router is faced with the task of allocating the total bandwith available at a particular output port among the traffic flows. In the context of an ATM SAR system, the SAR may segment packet flows into ATM cells that correspond to multiple ATM virtual circuits. The virtual circuits contest for the bandwidth of the output port. 
     SUMMARY 
     According to one aspect consistent with principles of the invention, a device includes queues for storing traffic flows and a rate wheel. The rate wheel includes sequentially arranged slots. The rate wheel schedules the flows in select ones of the slots based on traffic shaping parameters assigned to the flows. The rate wheel compensates for collisions between multiple flows that occur in the slots by subsequently skipping empty slots. 
     According to another aspect consistent with principles of the invention, a method for de-queuing data units scheduled as sequentially arranged slots includes de-queuing data units corresponding to a slot that is referenced by a de-queue pointer. The method further includes maintaining a first value for each of the slots based on a number of empty slots following the slot and incrementing the de-queue pointer by a number of slots based on the first value. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate the invention and, together with the description, explain the invention. In the drawings, 
         FIG. 1  is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary routing system in which concepts consistent with the principles of the invention may be implemented; 
         FIG. 2  is an exemplary block diagram of a portion of a packet forwarding engine of  FIG. 1 ; 
         FIG. 3  is an exemplary block diagram of a portion of an input/output (I/O) unit of  FIG. 2 ; 
         FIG. 4  is an exemplary block diagram of a portion of the segmentation and reassembly (SAR) logic of  FIG. 3 ; 
         FIG. 5  is a diagram illustrating portions of the egress portion shown in  FIG. 4  in additional detail; 
         FIG. 6  is a diagram conceptually illustrating the operation of the scheduling component shown in  FIG. 5  in additional detail; 
         FIG. 7  is a diagram conceptually illustrating portions of the scheduling component shown in  FIG. 5 ; 
         FIG. 8  is a diagram illustrating an exemplary slot in the rate wheel shown in  FIG. 7  in additional detail; 
         FIG. 9  is a flow chart illustrating exemplary operation of the scheduling component in en-queuing flows from the rate wheel; 
         FIG. 10  is a flow chart illustrating exemplary operation of the scheduling component in de-queuing flows from the rate wheel; and 
         FIGS. 11A and 11B  are diagrams that conceptually illustrate an exemplary set of de-queue operations. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The following detailed description of the invention refers to the accompanying drawings. The same reference numbers may be used in different drawings to identify the same or similar elements. Also, the following detailed description does not limit the invention. Instead, the scope of the invention is defined by the appended claims and equivalents. 
     As described herein, data units, such as ATM cells, are efficiently scheduled for transmission using a rate wheel. In normal operation of the rate wheel, cells reserve transmission slots in the rate wheel based on traffic policy that applies to a traffic flow to which the cell belongs. Different flows may occasionally attempt to schedule a cell in the same slot on the rate wheel, causing a collision. The system keeps track of the number of collisions and may later jump over idle slots to compensate for the collisions. 
     System Overview 
       FIG. 1  is a block diagram illustrating an exemplary routing system  100  in which concepts consistent with the principles of the invention may be implemented. System  100  may receive one or more packet streams from physical links, process the packet stream(s) to determine destination information, and transmit the packet stream(s) out on links in accordance with the destination information. System  100  may include packet forwarding engines (PFEs)  110 - 1  through  110 -N (collectively referred to as packet forwarding engines  110 ), a switch fabric  120 , and a routing engine (RE)  130 . 
     RE  130  may perform high level management functions for system  100 . For example, RE  130  may communicate with other networks and/or systems connected to system  100  to exchange information regarding network topology. RE  130  may create routing tables based on network topology information, create forwarding tables based on the routing tables, and forward the forwarding tables to PFEs  110 . PFEs  110  may use the forwarding tables to perform route lookups for incoming packets. RE  130  may also perform other general control and monitoring functions for system  100 . 
     PFEs  110  may each connect to RE  130  and switch fabric  120 . PFEs  110  may receive packet data on physical links connected to a network, such as a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), or another type of network. Each physical link could be one of many types of transport media, such as optical fiber or Ethernet cable. The data on the physical link is transmitted according to one of several protocols, such as the synchronous optical network (SONET) standard. The data may take the form of data units, where each data unit may include all or a portion of a packet. For ATM transmissions, for instance, the data units may be cells. 
     A PFE  110 - x  (where PFE  110 - x  refers to one of PFEs  110 ) may process incoming data units prior to transmitting the data units to another PFE or the network. To facilitate this processing, PFE  110 - x  may reassemble the data units into a packet and perform a route lookup for the packet using the forwarding table from RE  130  to determine destination information. If the destination indicates that the packet should be sent out on a physical link connected to PFE  110 - x , then PFE  110 - x  may prepare the packet for transmission by, for example, segmenting the packet into data units, adding any necessary headers, and transmitting the data units from the port associated with the physical link. 
       FIG. 2  is an exemplary block diagram illustrating a portion of PFE  110 - x  according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention. PFE  110 - x  may include a packet processor  210  and a set of input/output (I/O) units  220 - 1  through  220 - 2  (collectively referred to as I/O units  220 ). Although  FIG. 2  shows two I/O units  220  connected to packet processor  210 , in other implementations consistent with principles of the invention, there can be more or fewer I/O units  220  and/or additional packet processors  210 . 
     Packet processor  210  may perform routing functions and handle packet transfers to and from I/O units  220  and switch fabric  120 . For each packet it handles, packet processor  210  may perform the previously-discussed route lookup function and may perform other processing-related functions. 
     An I/O unit  220 - y  (where I/O unit  220 - y  refers to one of I/O units  220 ) may operate as an interface between its physical link and packet processor  210 . Different I/O units may be designed to handle different types of physical links. 
       FIG. 3  is an exemplary block diagram of a portion of I/O unit  220 - y  according to an implementation consistent with the principles of the invention. In this particular implementation, I/O unit  220 - y  may operate as an interface to an ATM link. 
     I/O unit  220 - y  may include a line card processor  310  and segmentation and reassembly (SAR) logic  320 . Line card processor  310  may process packets prior to transferring the packets to packet processor  210  or it may process packets from packet processor  210  before transmitting them to SAR logic  320 . SAR logic  320  may segment packets received from line card processor  310  into data units (e.g., ATM cells) for transmission on the physical links (e.g., SONET links) and reassemble packets from data units received on the physical links. SAR logic  320  may send reassembled packets to line card processor  310 . 
       FIG. 4  is an exemplary diagram of a portion of SAR logic  320 . SAR logic  320  may include an ingress component  420  and an egress component  410 . Ingress component  420  may receive fixed sized data units, such as ATM cells, and reassemble the cells into a variable size data unit, such as packet data. Similarly, egress component  410  may receive variable size data units, such as packet data, and segment the packets into fixed sized data units, such as cells. The cells may be transmitted from system  100  via one or more output ports (not shown) connected to a physical link. For example, an output port may connect to an optical transmission medium, such as a SONET link having an optical carrier level of OC-12 (622.08 Mbps) or OC-3 (155.52 Mbps). 
     Ingress component  420  may receive data units on particular data flows and reassemble the data units into packets. To do this, ingress component  420  may maintain information regarding a data flow with which a packet is associated and associate each arriving data unit of the packet with that data flow. Ingress component  420  may process packets across multiple packet flows that are received at multiple associated input ports. Generally, each flow may be configured (provisioned) per port before ingress component  420  receives any data units associated with that flow. 
     The data units associated with a particular packet may arrive at various times. Each data unit may include a header and data. For ATM, the header may include a virtual circuit identifier (VCI) that identifies a particular virtual circuit with which the data unit is associated and a virtual path identifier (VPI) that identifies a particular virtual path with which the data unit is associated. 
       FIG. 5  is a diagram illustrating portions of egress component  410  in additional detail. Egress component  410  may include a segmentation component  510  and a scheduling component  520 . Segmentation component  510  may receive the input packets and segment the packets into fixed-length data units, which will be described herein as ATM cells, although other data unit formats could also be used. The cells may be output to scheduling component  520 , which generally handles scheduling of the cells for transmission. The actual transmission may be handled by an output port(s), which puts the cells on the physical link. 
       FIG. 6  is a diagram conceptually illustrating the operation of scheduling component  520  in additional detail. The cells received from segmentation component  510  may be organized into a number of virtual circuits (VCs)  601 - 1  through  601 -M (collectively referred to as virtual circuits  601 ), which may correspond to packet flows in the network. In general, a packet flow may be defined as packets having a set of common properties derived from the data contained in the packets. For example, a particular packet flow may be created to send data between two endpoints that desire a particular quality of service (QoS) level (e.g., a packet flow being used to carry a video transmission between two endpoints). Cells corresponding to packets in the packet flow may belong to one of VCs  601 . Cells in different VCs  601  may contend for access to a particular output port, such as output port  602 . Scheduling component  520  schedules the sequence of cells that are sent to this port. 
     VCs  601  may each be defined by a number of traffic shaping parameters. In particular, a VC may be defined by a Peak Cell Rate (PCR) value, a Sustainable Cell Rate (SCR) value, a Maximum Burst Size (MBS) value, and/or a Cell Delay Variation (CDV) value. The values for these parameters may differ between VCs. Scheduling component  520  attempts to schedule cells from each of VCs  601  such that the cells from each VC are sent to output port  602  in a manner that satisfies the traffic shaping parameters. In general, the traffic shaping parameters operate to control the availability of bandwidth to network users according to their traffic contracts and to define the spacing or interval between cells in order to mitigate buffering requirements. 
     Scheduling Component  520   
       FIG. 7  is a diagram conceptually illustrating portions of scheduling component  520 . More specifically, scheduling component  520  may use a rate wheel  710  to schedule cell traffic from VCs  601  to output port  602 . Rate wheel  710  is conceptually illustrated in  FIG. 7  as a “wheel” containing evenly spaced slots  715  in which cells are scheduled. In practice, rate wheel  710  may generally be implemented as a circular memory structure that may be maintained in random access memory or another type of computer-readable medium. 
     The various VCs  601  are illustrated in  FIG. 7  as corresponding to queues  720 - 1  through  720 -J (collectively referred to as queues  720 ). Queues  720  may be first-in first-out (FIFO) queues. One of queues  720  may correspond to a single VC or packet flow or, in some implementations, multiple packet flows that have the same traffic shaping parameters may be handled by a single queue. 
     A number of pointers may be associated with rate wheel  710 . As shown, a de-queue pointer  712 , a present time pointer  714 , and an en-queue pointer  716  may each point to various slots on rate wheel  710 . Pointers  712 ,  714 , and  716  may each be maintained by scheduling component  520 . De-queue pointer  712  indicates the current position on rate wheel  710  at which flows are being serviced. Cells being currently serviced are transferred to output port  602  for transmission on the link. Output port  602  may include an output buffer for queuing data for transmission. En-queue pointer  716  indicates the future position of each newly scheduled flow. Cells from one of queues  720  may be scheduled in slots on rate wheel  710  at evenly spaced slot intervals determined by the traffic shaping parameters corresponding to the queue. For example, the next slot that is to be scheduled for a queue may be based on the previously scheduled slot offset by the cell interval (e.g., 1/PCR) for the queue. If no cell from one of queues  720  is scheduled to be included on rate wheel  710  at a particular time interval corresponding to the slot, an “idle cell” may be included on the rate wheel for that slot. The idle cell may later be transmitted to output buffer  602 . Idle cells are generally used to maintain the cell interval at the output port. Without idle cells, output buffer  602  may “collapse” the intended idle spacing between two cells and place them closer together than desired. 
     Present time pointer  714  may include a counter that increments at the cell rate (the rate corresponding to the interval at which cells are transmitted from the output port) or faster. The count value of present time pointer  714  may be stalled whenever the buffer in output port  602  is full. Thus, present time pointer  714  may increment at the “logical” cell rate (or faster) when room exists in output port  602 . Because the counter of present time pointer  714  can operate faster than the cell rate, present time pointer  714  may stall and then “catch up” in order to keep output port  602  full. 
     The number of slots in rate wheel  710  may be based on the line rate of the output port relative to the slowest possible output rate. For an OC-12 SONET output port, for example, rate wheel  710  may be constructed using 16 k slots. For an OC-3 SONET output port, rate wheel  710  maybe constructed using 4 k slots. 
       FIG. 8  is a diagram illustrating one of the slots of rate wheel  710  (labeled as slot  815  in  FIG. 8 ) in additional detail. Slot  815  may include a number of fields, shown as a jump offset field  820 , a queue ID field  825 , a head pointer field  830 , and a tail pointer field  835 . Slot  815 , instead of physically storing the cell assigned to it, may instead store queue ID field  825 , which acts as a pointer to the queue that contains the scheduled cell. In one implementation, a value of zero means that there is no cell scheduled in that slot (i.e., the slot is empty). 
     Because flows from multiple queues  720  are being scheduled, each with a potentially different cell transmission rate, it is possible that multiple flows will attempt to schedule a cell in the same slot. This is referred to herein as a “collision.” Collisions may be handled by scheduling multiple cell transmissions in a single slot. Head pointer  830  and tail pointer  835  may be used to handle the collisions by pointing to a linked-list of additional queue ID fields. Such a linked-list is shown in  FIG. 8  as list  840 . Each entry in linked-list  840  may include a queue ID field  841 , similar to queue ID field  825 , and a pointer  842  to the next entry in linked-list  840 . In the example list illustrated in  FIG. 8 , head pointer  830  points to entry  850  in linked-list  840 . The queue ID  841  of entry  850  points to a second one of queues  720  that attempted to schedule a cell in slot  815 . Pointer  842  of entry  850  points to another colliding entry  855 —the third queue  720  that attempted to schedule a cell in slot  815 . Tail pointer  835  may also point to entry  855 , indicating that this is the last entry in the linked-list for this particular slot. 
     Scheduling component  520 , when adding a colliding entry to linked list  840 , may add the entry at the location of the next free address entry, which may be pointed-to by a next free address pointer  860 . When the slot is later accessed and a colliding entry in linked list  840  is sent to output port  602 , the entry is then classified as a free entry and added to the end of a linked-list of free entries. In  FIG. 8 , two free entries are illustrated (entries  870  and  875 ). When another entry becomes free, entry  875  may be modified to point to the free entry. Similarly, when entry  870  is taken and added to a slot, next free address pointer  860  may be modified to point to entry  875 . 
     Jump offset value  820  is stored on a per-slot basis, and as will be described in more detail below, assists scheduling component  520  in “jumping” over empty slots on the rate wheel. By jumping over empty slots, scheduling component  520  can optimize the bandwidth utilization at output port  602 . In addition to jump offset value  820 , other values are stored by scheduling component  520  and used to assist in jumping over empty slots. Jump credit  805  is one such value. Unlike jump offset value  820 , which is stored on a per-slot basis, jump credit  805  may be a global value that is stored by scheduling component  520  for each rate wheel  710 . 
     Operation of Rate Wheel  710   
       FIG. 9  is a flow chart illustrating operation of scheduling component  520  in en-queuing flows from queues  720  to rate wheel  710 . Flows may be scheduled based on a number of traffic shaping parameters (e.g., PCR, SCR, MBS, CDV). For each queue  720 , scheduling component  520  may calculate a cell interval based on the traffic shaping parameters for the flow (act  901 ). For example, each slot on rate wheel  710  may be considered a cell slot on the link. Thus, if the traffic shaping parameters for a flow dictate that the flow should be sent at one-quarter the link rate, then scheduling component  520  will en-queue the queue ID  825  of the flow at every fourth slot. 
     Based on the calculated cell intervals, scheduling component  520  en-queues the flows, corresponding to queues  720 , at the designated slots (act  902 ). En-queue pointer  716  points to a position on rate wheel  710  at which the particular queue ID is being written. En-queue pointer  716  advances around rate wheel  710  as the flows are written. Scheduling component  520  may ensure that en-queue pointer  716  does not wrap de-queue pointer  712  before writing to the next position. 
     Slots at which no flows are scheduled are empty cell slots. Empty cell slots, when transmitted to output port  602 , will result in unused bandwidth on the physical link. Accordingly, it is desirable to minimize empty slots to the extent that the empty slots (idle cells) are not required to maintain a desired interval between cells. 
     Scheduling component  520  may locate collisions when multiple flows attempt to schedule a single slot (act  903 ). When a collision is found, scheduling component  520  writes the queue ID of the first flow to queue ID field  825  and adds the queue IDs of the remaining flows to linked-list  840 , as previously discussed (act  904 ). When there is no collision, the queue ID of the single flow is written to queue ID field  825  (act  905 ). Head pointer  830  and/or tail pointer  835  may be given the value null, indicating that they do not point to any additional flows. 
       FIG. 10  is a flow chart illustrating operation of scheduling component  520  in de-queuing flows from rate wheel  710 . Rate wheel  710  may be evaluated each time present time counter  714  is advanced. As previously mentioned, present time pointer  714  may be advanced at a rate faster than the rate of output port  602 . When the buffer in output port  602  is full, present time pointer  714  may not advance. 
     Scheduling component  520  may write the next entry in the slot indicated by de-queue pointer  712  to output port  602  (act  1001 ). In particular, the next cell from the queue corresponding to queue ID  825  of the current slot is written to output port  602 . De-queue pointer  712  is advanced as the cells are written to output port  602 . The amount to advance de-queue pointer  712  depends on the value in jump offset field  820  and on whether the current slot is a collision slot. Jump offset field  820  may contain a value that advances de-queue pointer  712  over empty slots and to the next non-empty slot when the last entry in a slot is processed. 
     The jump offset value for the slot may be updated to reflect the location of the next non-empty slot (act  1002 ). For example, if the next two slots on rate wheel  710  are empty and the third slot contains an entry, jump offset field  820  may be given a value of two, indicating that the next two slots can be “jumped.” Jump credit field  805  is used to indicate how many slots are available to be jumped over, which should not be more than the number of accumulated collisions. As jump offset fields  820  are incremented, jump credit field  805  is correspondingly decremented. Accordingly, when updating jump offset field  820 , this field may only be updated up to the value of jump credit field  805  (act  1002 ). In other words, jump offset field  820  can only be set to indicate a jump value up to the point to which jump credit field  805  indicates a jump credit is available. 
     If the current slot is a collision slot with additional, un-evaluated entries, jump credit field  805  is incremented (acts  1003  and  1005 ). De-queue pointer  712  is not advanced in this situation as there are more entries in the slot. However, if the current entry is the last entry in the slot, scheduling component  520  may advance de-queue pointer  712  by one plus the value of the jump offset value (acts  1003  and  1004 ). In the situation in which the jump offset value for the slot was not updated, the jump offset value is zero, resulting in de-queue pointer  712  advancing by one (act  1004 ). 
       FIGS. 11A and 11B  are diagrams that conceptually illustrate an exemplary set of de-queue operations. 
     In  FIG. 11A , assume that there are five flows, labeled as flows “A” through “E”, each having traffic shaping parameters that dictate a fixed cell interval of five slots. Further assume that the five flows all collide in first slot  1101  of rate wheel  710 . Flow A is placed in the primary entry in slot  1101  and flows B through E are placed in a linked-list of colliding entries. When de-queue pointer  712  reaches slot  1101 , it will be stopped at slot  1101  for five cycles of present time pointer  716  as each of flows A through E are processed. Without the ability to jump slots, as described above with reference to  FIG. 10 , idle cells are emitted at slots  1102 - 1105  and sent to output port  602 . As a result, only 5/9 th  of available bandwidth would be used, and the rate achieved for each flow is 1/9 th , rather than the desired ⅕ th  of the available port rate. With the ability to jump slots, however, as described above, the jump offset value is incremented to a value of four and the de-queue pointer is advanced five slots (4+1) to advance to slot  1106 . Accordingly, slots  1102 - 1105  are skipped after processing is completed at slot  1101 . No idle cells are emitted, each flow is transmitted at the desired port rate, and the full output port bandwidth is used. 
     In  FIG. 11B , assume that in addition to the five colliding flows A through E, an additional flow “F” is present. Flow F is scheduled at slot  1103 . When de-queue pointer  712  reaches slot  1101 , it will be stopped at slot  1101  for five cycles of present time pointer  716  as each of flows A through E are processed. The jump offset value for slot  1101  will be set to point to the next non-empty slot, slot  1003 . Jump credit  805  will have additional credits available after setting the offset pointer for slot  1101 , however, as four flows collided in slot  1101 , but the next non-empty slot is only two slots ahead of slot  1101 . Accordingly, the jump offset value for slot  1103  is set to point to slot  1106 . In this manner, a linked-list of jump slots are created by which empty slots can be skipped to fully use the bandwidth at output port  602 . 
     CONCLUSION 
     A circular memory structure, called a rate wheel herein, was described that efficiently schedules data units. The number of collisions between flows of multiple data units are kept track of and used to determine a number of available slots in the rate wheel that may be skipped. By skipping empty slots, the bandwidth of the output port can be more fully used. 
     The foregoing description of preferred embodiments of the invention provides illustration and description, but is not intended to be exhaustive or to limit the invention to the precise form disclosed. Modifications and variations are possible in light of the above teachings or may be acquired from practice of the invention. 
     For example, while series of acts have been presented with respect to  FIGS. 9 and 10 , the order of the acts may be different in other implementations consistent with principles of the invention. Also, non-dependent acts may be implemented in parallel. 
     No element, act, or instruction used in the description of the present application should be construed as critical or essential to the invention unless explicitly described as such. Also, as used herein, the article “a” is intended to include one or more items. Where only one item is intended, the term “one” or similar language is used. Further, the phrase “based on” is intended to mean “based, at least in part, on” unless explicitly stated otherwise. 
     The scope of the invention is defined by the claims and their equivalents.

Technology Category: 5