Service specific route selection in communication networks

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10230626-B2
Application number	US-201715798292-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Oct 30, 2017
Priority date	Jun 16, 2015
Publication date	Mar 12, 2019
Grant date	Mar 12, 2019

Abstract

Methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture (e.g., physical storage media) to perform service specific route selection in communication networks are disclosed. Example route selection methods disclosed herein include determining respective component performance parameters for network components of a communication network based on a weighting profile associated with a first service from a plurality of different services for which traffic is to be routed in the communication network. Disclosed example route selection methods also include determining, based on the component performance parameters, respective path performance parameters for a plurality of candidate paths between two endpoints in the communication network. Disclosed example route selection methods further include selecting, based on the path performance parameters, a first one of the candidate paths to route traffic for the first service between the two endpoints.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An apparatus to route first traffic data and second traffic data between a first network node and a second network node, the apparatus comprising:
memory including machine readable instructions; and
a processor to execute the machine readable instructions to perform operations including:
mapping performance measurements corresponding to network components to performance parameters to generate mapped performance parameters, the network components being in at least one of a first candidate path and a second candidate path between a first network node and a second network node;
calculating, based on the mapped performance parameters and service specific weighting profiles, first relative performance parameters for the network components, the first relative performance parameters corresponding to one or more services, the services including a first service and a second service;
calculating, based on the first relative performance parameters, second relative performance parameters for the respective candidate paths, the second relative performance parameters corresponding to one or more of the services; and
based on the second relative performance parameters, routing first service data corresponding to the first service on the first candidate path and routing second service data corresponding to the second service on the second candidate path.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the operations further include: querying a database to obtain the first and second candidate paths.

3. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the first relative performance parameters characterize the performance of the network components to route traffic for corresponding ones of the services relative to the performance of the network components for routing traffic corresponding to others of the services.

4. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the operations further include:
selecting, based on the second relative performance parameters, the first candidate path to route the first service data; and
selecting, based on the second relative performance parameters, the second candidate path to route the second service data.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein calculating the first relative performance parameters includes:
Weighting, based on the service specific weighting profiles, the set of mapped performance parameters to determine a weighted set of the mapped performance parameters; and
combining the mapped performance parameters of the weighted set of the mapped performance parameters.

6. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein calculating the second relative performance parameters includes:
combining a first plurality of the first relative performance parameters for a first plurality of network components included in the first candidate path; and
combining a second plurality of the first relative performance parameters for a second plurality of network components included in the second candidate path.

7. The apparatus of claim 1 , wherein the operations of routing first service data corresponding to the first service on the first candidate path includes transmitting routing information descriptive of the first candidate path to at least a first plurality of the network components implementing the first candidate path.

8. A method to route first service data and second service data between a first network node and a second network node, the method comprising:
mapping, by executing an instruction with a processor, performance measurements corresponding to network components to performance parameters to form mapped performance parameters, the network components being in at least one of a first candidate path and a second candidate path between the first network node and the second network node;
calculating, based on the mapped performance parameters and service specific weighting profiles, first relative performance parameters for the network components, the first relative performance parameters corresponding to one or more services;
calculating, based on the first relative performance parameters, second relative performance parameters for the respective candidate paths, the second relative performance parameters corresponding to one or more of the services; and
based on the second relative performance parameters, routing the first service data corresponding to a first of the services on the first candidate path and routing the second service data corresponding to a second of the services on the second candidate path.

9. The method of claim 8 , further including querying a database to obtain the first and second candidate paths.

10. The method of claim 8 , wherein the mapping includes assigning respective performance measurements to respective unitless ranges of values.

11. The method of claim 8 , wherein the first relative performance parameters characterize the performance of the network components to route traffic for one of the services relative to the performance of the network components to route traffic for others of the services.

12. The method of claim 8 , further including:
selecting, based on the second relative performance parameters, the first candidate path to route traffic for the first service data; and
selecting, based on the second relative performance parameters, the second candidate path to route traffic for the second service data.

13. The method of claim 8 , wherein the calculating of the first relative performance parameters includes:
weighting the mapped performance parameters, based on the service specific weighting profiles, to determine a weighted set of the mapped performance parameters; and
combining the mapped performance parameters included in the weighted set of the mapped performance parameters.

14. The method of claim 8 , wherein the calculating of the second relative performance parameters includes:
combining a first plurality of the first relative performance parameters for a first plurality of network components included in the first candidate path; and
combining a second plurality of the first relative performance parameters for a second plurality of network components included in the second candidate path.

15. The method of claim 8 , wherein the routing of the first service data includes transmitting routing information descriptive of the first candidate path to at least a first plurality of the network components implementing the first candidate path.

16. A tangible machine readable storage medium comprising machine readable instructions which, when executed, cause a machine to perform operations comprising:
mapping performance measurements corresponding to network components to performance parameters to determine mapped performance parameters, the network components being in at least one of a first candidate path and a second candidate path between a first network node and a second network node;
calculating, based on the mapped performance parameters and service specific weighting profiles, first relative performance parameters for the network components, the first relative performance parameters corresponding to one or more services, the services including a first service and a second service;
calculating, based on the first relative performance parameters, second relative performance parameters for the respective candidate paths, the second relative performance parameters corresponding to one or more of the services; and
based on the second relative performance parameters, routing first service data corresponding to the first service on the first candidate path and routing second service data corresponding to the second service on the secon

Assignees

• At & T Ip I Lp

Inventors

• Wohlert Randolph

Classifications

• H04L45/306

  Route determination based on the nature of the carried application · CPC title

• H04L45/302 Primary

  Route determination based on requested QoS · CPC title