Admission control in a network environment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9565127-B2
Application number	US-201514944615-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Nov 18, 2015
Priority date	Feb 12, 2013
Publication date	Feb 7, 2017
Grant date	Feb 7, 2017

Abstract

An admission control resource tracks identities of multiple clients in a network environment that share use of a network resource to retrieve content at the same or different adaptive bit rates. The admission control resource further monitors status information indicating an ability of each of the multiple clients to retrieve content at the same or different adaptive bit rates over the shared network resource. Based at least in part on the status information, the admission control resource controls use of the shared network resource by new clients. In other words, as its name suggests, the admission control resource as discussed herein selectively limits how many subscribers are able to use a shared network resource depending on feedback from one or more clients that currently use the shared network resource to retrieve the content at the same or different adaptive bit rates.

First claim

I claim:

1. A method comprising:
via computer processor hardware, performing operations of:
receiving performance feedback indicating an ability of each of multiple clients to independently retrieve content at corresponding desired bit rates over a shared communication link, the performance feedback received from the multiple clients;
receiving a request from a new client to use the shared communication link; and
controlling use of the shared communication link by the new client based on the received performance feedback;
wherein controlling use of the shared communication link by the new client further comprises: utilizing the performance feedback as a basis to determine usage of the shared communication link by the new client to retrieve content.

2. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the multiple clients includes a first client and a second client that simultaneously use the shared communication link to retrieve the content at different adaptive bit rates.

3. The method as in claim 2 , wherein controlling use of the shared communication link further comprises:
preventing the new client from using the shared communication link in response to detecting an inability of the multiple clients to retrieve the content at the corresponding desired bit rates.

4. The method as in claim 1 further comprising:
utilizing the performance feedback as a basis to determine whether or not to allow the new client use of the shared communication link.

5. The method as in claim 2 , wherein receiving the performance feedback includes:
receiving first performance feedback, the first performance feedback received from a first client of the multiple clients, the first performance feedback specifying a degree to which the first client is able to retrieve first requested content over the shared communication link at adaptive bit rates as selected by the first client;
receiving second performance feedback, the second performance feedback received from a second client of the multiple clients, the second performance feedback specifying a degree to which the second client is able to retrieve second requested content at adaptive bit rates as selected by the second client; and
utilizing at least the first performance feedback and the second performance feedback to identify an ability of the shared communication link to provide bandwidth to the new client.

6. The method as in claim 1 , wherein receiving the performance feedback includes:
receiving feedback messages from the multiple clients, each respective feedback message including a corresponding network address of a client that generates the respective feedback message; and
utilizing the network addresses of the feedback messages to identify that the feedback messages pertain to the shared communication link.

7. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the shared communication link represents a quantum of shared capacity in a cable network environment used by the multiple clients to retrieve content at different adaptive bit rates as selected by the multiple clients.

8. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the multiple clients reside in a common service group of a cable network environment; and
wherein the shared communication link includes a portion of bandwidth in the cable network environment allocated to support selective retrieval of adaptive bit rate encoded content by the multiple clients.

9. The method as in claim 1 further comprising:
in response to receiving notification that a given client has terminated use of the shared communication link to retrieve content, granting the new client access to use of the shared communication link to retrieve content at the adaptive bit rates.

10. The method as in claim 1 further comprising:
producing a performance metric based upon the performance feedback, the performance metric indicating a collective ability of the multiple clients to retrieve content at desired bit rates over the shared communication link; and
wherein controlling use of the shared communication link by the new client further comprises: utilizing the performance metric as a basis to determine whether or not to allow the new client use of the shared communication link to retrieve content.

11. The method as in claim 1 , wherein the multiple clients includes a first client and a second client that simultaneously use the shared communication link to retrieve the content at different selected bit rates; and
wherein receiving the performance feedback includes: receiving first performance feedback from a first client, the first performance feedback indicating an ability of the first client to retrieve content over the shared communication link at a first desired bit rate as selected by the first client; and receiving second performance feedback from a second client, the second performance feedback indicating an ability of the second client to retrieve content over the shared communication link at a second desired bit rate as selected by the second client.

12. A computer system comprising:
computer processor hardware; and
a hardware storage resource coupled to the computer processor hardware, the hardware storage resource storing instructions that, when executed by the computer processor hardware, cause the computer processor hardware to perform operations of:
receiving performance feedback indicating an ability of each of multiple clients to independently retrieve content at corresponding desired bit rates over a shared communication link, the performance feedback received from the multiple clients;
receiving a request from a new client to use the shared communication link; and
controlling use of the shared communication link by the new client based on the received performance feedback;
wherein controlling use of the shared communication link by the new client further comprises: utilizing the performance feedback as a basis to determine usage of the shared communication link by the new client to retrieve content.

13. The computer system as in claim 12 , wherein the multiple clients includes a first client and a second client that simultaneously use the shared communication link to retrieve the content at different adaptive bit rates.

14. The computer system as in claim 12 , wherein controlling use of the shared communication link further comprises:
preventing the new client from using the shared communication link in response to detecting an inability of the multiple clients to retrieve the content at the corresponding desired bit rates.

15. The computer system as in claim 12 , wherein the computer processor hardware further supports operations of:
utilizing the performance feedback to produce performance metric indicating a collective ability of the multiple clients to retrieve content at the corresponding desired bit rates over the shared communication link; and
utilizing the performance metric as a basis to determine whether or not to allow the new client use of the shared communication link.

16. The computer system as in claim 13 , wherein receiving the status formation includes:
receiving first performance feedback, the first performance feedback received from a first client of the multiple clients, the first performance feedback specifying a degree to which the first client is able to retrieve first requested content over the shared communication link at adaptive bit rates as selected by the first client;
receiving second performance feedback, the second performance feedback received from a second client of the multiple clients, the second performance feedback specifying a degree to which the second client is able to retrieve seco

Assignees

• Time Warner Cable Entpr Llc

Inventors

• Pfeffer Howard Leigh

Classifications

• H04L47/70 Primary

  Admission control; Resource allocation · CPC title

• H04L65/607

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L65/4069

  Electricity · mapped topic

• H04L47/822 Primary

  Collecting or measuring resource availability data · CPC title

• H04L47/25

  with rate being modified by the source upon detecting a change of network conditions · CPC title