Shaping outgoing traffic of network packets in a network management system

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-12368663-B2
Application number	US-202418435714-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Feb 7, 2024
Priority date	Oct 10, 2014
Publication date	Jul 22, 2025
Grant date	Jul 22, 2025

Abstract

A network management system can include multiple network interfaces. For example, the network management system can include a first network interface that can receive a stream of network packets associated with users. The network management system can include a second network interface for transmitting the received stream of network packets. The network management system can shape the stream of network packets before transmission. The network management system can assign the network packets into classes. The classes may have a configured hierarchical relationship. The classes may also have an operational hierarchy based on bandwidth usage during operation. The network management system can shape the stream of network packets based on operational hierarchy of classes and configured hierarchical relationship.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A network management system for shaping outgoing traffic of network packets, the network management system comprising:
a first network interface configured to receive a plurality of network packets associated with a plurality of user devices; and
one or more hardware processors configured to:
classify a first plurality of network packets received by the first network interface to a first class based on an association of the first plurality of network packets with a first attribute;
classify a second plurality of network packets received by the first network interface to a second class based on an association of the second plurality of network packets with a second attribute different from the first attribute;
determine a first network packet of the first plurality of network packets;
determine a second network packet of the second plurality of network packets; and
prioritize, in the outgoing traffic, a transmission of the first network packet over a transmission of the second network packet;

wherein the first class has a first relative priority, a first runtime priority, and a first bandwidth requirement, and wherein the second class has a second relative priority, a second runtime priority, and a second bandwidth requirement.

2. The network management system of claim 1 , wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured to dynamically associate one or more computing devices with the first class or the second class.

3. The network management system of claim 1 , wherein the first bandwidth requirement comprises a first maximum bandwidth and the second bandwidth requirement comprises a second maximum bandwidth.

4. The network management system of claim 1 , wherein the first attribute corresponds to a first user device of the plurality of user devices, and the second attribute corresponds to a second user device of the plurality of user devices, the second user device different from the first user device.

5. The network management system of claim 1 , wherein the first attribute corresponds to a first network traffic type, and the second attribute corresponds to a second network traffic type different from the first network traffic type.

6. The network management system of claim 1 , wherein the first bandwidth requirement comprises a first minimum bandwidth and the second bandwidth requirement comprises a second minimum bandwidth.

7. The network management system of claim 6 , wherein the one or more hardware processors are further configured to:
provide at least the first minimum bandwidth to the first plurality of network packets,
provide at least the second minimum bandwidth to the second plurality of network packets, and
allocate a remaining amount of bandwidth across the first plurality of network packets and the second plurality of network packets according to a runtime hierarchical relationship between the first class and the second class, said allocating based at least in part on the first relative priority of the first class, the first runtime priority of the first class, the second relative priority of the second class, and the second runtime priority of the second class.

8. The network management system of claim 7 , wherein the remaining amount of bandwidth is allocated only to the first plurality of network packets based on the first relative priority being higher than the second relative priority.

9. The network management system of claim 7 , wherein the remaining amount of bandwidth is allocated equally to the first plurality of network packets and the second plurality of network packets based on the first relative priority being equal to the second relative priority.

10. The network management system of claim 7 , wherein the remaining amount of bandwidth is allocated only to the first plurality of network packets based on the first runtime priority being higher than the second runtime priority.

11. A network management method for shaping outgoing traffic of network packets, the network management method comprising:
receiving, via a first network interface, a plurality of network packets associated with a plurality of user devices;
classifying a first plurality of network packets received by the first network interface to a first class based on an association of the first plurality of network packets with a first attribute;
classifying a second plurality of network packets received by the first network interface to a second class based on an association of the second plurality of network packets with a second attribute different from the first attribute;
determining a first network packet of the first plurality of network packets;
determining a second network packet of the second plurality of network packets; and
prioritizing, in the outgoing traffic, a transmission of the first network packet over a transmission of the second network packet;
wherein the first class has a first relative priority, a first runtime priority, and a first bandwidth requirement, and wherein the second class has a second relative priority, a second runtime priority, and a second bandwidth requirement.

12. The network management method of claim 11 , wherein the first bandwidth requirement comprises a first maximum bandwidth and the second bandwidth requirement comprises a second maximum bandwidth.

13. The network management method of claim 11 , wherein the first bandwidth requirement comprises a first minimum bandwidth and the second bandwidth requirement comprises a second minimum bandwidth.

14. The network management method of claim 13 , further comprising:
allocating at least the first minimum bandwidth to the first plurality of network packets,
allocating at least the second minimum bandwidth to the second plurality of network packets, and
allocating a remaining amount of bandwidth across the first plurality of network packets and the second plurality of network packets according to a runtime hierarchical relationship between the first class and the second class, said allocating based at least in part on the first relative priority of the first class, the first runtime priority of the first class, the second relative priority of the second class, and the second runtime priority of the second class.

15. The network management method of claim 14 , wherein the remaining amount of bandwidth is allocated only to the first plurality of network packets based on the first relative priority being higher than the second relative priority.

16. The network management method of claim 14 , wherein the remaining amount of bandwidth is allocated only to the first plurality of network packets based on the first runtime priority being higher than the second runtime priority.

17. A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions which, when executed by one or more computer processors, cause the one or more computer processors to perform a method comprising:
receiving, via a first network interface, a plurality of network packets associated with a plurality of user devices;
classifying a first plurality of network packets received by the first network interface to a first class based on an association of the first plurality of network packets with a first attribute;
classifying a second plurality of network packets received by the first network interface to a second class based on an association of the second plurality of network packets with a second attribute different from the first attribute;
determining a first network packet of the first plurality of network packets;
determining a second network packet of the second plurality

Assignees

• Nomadix Inc

Inventors

• Swig Allen Martin
• Olshansky Vadim

Classifications

• H04L47/822

  Collecting or measuring resource availability data · CPC title

• H04L45/04 Primary

  Interdomain routing, e.g. hierarchical routing · CPC title