Methods and systems for transmitting packets through aggregated end-to-end connection

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2015009990-A1
Application number	US-201313935577-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jul 5, 2013
Priority date	Jul 5, 2013
Publication date	Jan 8, 2015
Grant date	—

Abstract

A method carried out by a first communications router for transmitting data packets to a second communications router by establishing an aggregated end-to-end connection with the second communications router. The aggregated end-to-end connection comprises a plurality of established end-to-end connections which are classified into a first group and at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s). The first group of established end-to-end connection(s) satisfy all of one or more conditions and the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s) do not satisfy all of the one or more conditions. Data packets are transmitted through the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) and the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s), although, it is preferred to transmit data packets through the first group of established end-to-end connection(s). The present invention further comprises a method and system for determining whether each of the established end-to-end connections of an aggregated end-to-end connection belongs to a first group of established end-to-end connection(s) or at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s) and determining whether data packets are first type data packets. The first type data packets are transmitted through the first group of established end-to-end connection(s).

First claim

1 . A method for transmitting data packets by a first communications router to a second communications router, comprising:
establishing an aggregated end-to-end connection with the second communications router, wherein the aggregated end-to-end connection comprising a plurality of established end-to-end connections; classifying the plurality of established end-to-end connections into a first group and at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s), wherein the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) satisfy all of one or more conditions and wherein the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s) do not satisfy all of the one or more conditions; transmitting data packets through the aggregated end-to-end connection by transmitting the data packets through the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) and the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s), wherein the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) are preferred for transmitting the data packets.

2 . A method for transmitting data packets by a first communications router to a second communications router, comprising:
establishing an aggregated end-to-end connection with the second communications router, wherein the aggregated end-to-end connection comprising a plurality of established end-to-end connections; determining whether each of the established end-to-end connections belongs to a first group of established end-to-end connection(s) or at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s), wherein the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) satisfy all of one or more conditions and wherein the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s) do not satisfy all of the one or more conditions; determining whether the data packets are first type data packets; and transmitting the first type data packets through the aggregated end-to-end connection by transmitting the first type data packets through the first group of established end-to-end connection(s).

3 . The method of claim 2 , further comprising:
determining whether the data packets are first type data packets or second type data packets; and transmitting second type data packets through the aggregated end-to-end connection by transmitting the second type data packets through the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) and the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s).

4 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , wherein:
when an established end-to-end connection belonging to the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) no longer satisfies all of the one or more conditions, the established end-to-end connection does not further belong to the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) and becomes belonging to one of the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s) according to the conditions the established end-to-end connection satisfies.

5 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , wherein:
when an established end-to-end connection belonging to one of the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s) has satisfied all of the one or more conditions, the established end-to-end connection does not further belong to the one of the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s) and becomes belonging to the first group of established end-to-end connection(s).

6 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , further comprising transmitting at least one alert message when an established end-to-end connection belonging to the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) leaves the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) and/or no longer satisfies all of the one or more conditions.

7 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , further comprising:
transmitting management data packets through the aggregated end-to-end connection by transmitting the management data packets through either the first group or the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s).

8 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , further comprising:
transmitting error correction data packets through the aggregated end-to-end connection by transmitting the error correction data packets through either the first group or the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s), wherein the error correction packets are created by the first communications router based, at least in part, on the data packets.

9 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , wherein the classifying is performed periodically.

10 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , wherein the one or more conditions are selected from the group consisting of performance metric, service provider, usage metric, location, time, price metric, security, user identity, Internet Protocol address range, communication protocol, communication technology, application, and device.

11 . The method of claim 10 , wherein the performance metric is selected from the group consisting of throughput, error rates, packet latency, packet jitter, symbol jitter, quality of service, security, coverage area, bandwidth, bit error rate, packet error rate, frame error rate, dropped packet rate, queuing delay, round trip time, capacity, signal level, interference level, bandwidth delay product, handoff delay time, signal-to-interface ratio, and signal-to-noise ratio.

12 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , wherein the one or more conditions are retrieved remotely from a remote server or retrieved locally from a local storage medium, and is received through a web interface, an application programming interface (API), a command line interface or a console.

13 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , wherein when there are more than one non-first group of established end-to-end connections, the transmitting data packets is performed by distributing data packets among the non-first groups of established end-to-end connections according to a ranking.

14 . The method of claim 1 or 2 , wherein when there is more than one condition, weights are assigned to the more than one condition, wherein conditions with higher weights have higher priority than conditions with lower weights when classifying the plurality of established end-to-end connections.

15 . A first communications router capable of transmitting data packets to a second communications router, comprising:
a plurality of network interfaces, at least one processing unit; at least one main memory; at least one secondary storage storing program instructions executable by the at least one processing unit for:
establishing an aggregated end-to-end connection with the second communications router, wherein the aggregated end-to-end connection comprising a plurality of established end-to-end connections;
classifying the plurality of established end-to-end connections into a first group and at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s), wherein the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) satisfy all of one or more conditions and wherein the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s) do not satisfy all of the one or more conditions;
transmitting data packets through the aggregated end-to-end connection by transmitting the data packets through the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) and the at least one non-first group of established end-to-end connection(s), wherein the first group of established end-to-end connection(s) is preferred for transmitting the data packets.

16 . A first communications router

Assignees

• Sung Patrick Ho Wai
• Ng Kam Chiu
• Leung Wan Chun
• Pismo Labs Technology Ltd

Inventors

• Sung Patrick Ho Wai
• Ng Kam Chiu
• Leung Wan Chun

Classifications

• H04L12/4641 Primary

  Virtual LANs, VLANs, e.g. virtual private networks [VPN] (LAN interconnection over a bridge based backbone H04L12/462; encapsulation techniques H04L12/4633; routing of packets H04L45/00; packet switches H04L49/00; virtual private networks for security H04L63/0272) · CPC title

• H04W76/022

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L45/24 Primary

  Multipath · CPC title

• H04L43/0811

  by checking connectivity · CPC title

• H04L47/825

  Involving tunnels, e.g. MPLS · CPC title