Flexible and scalable enhanced transmission selection method for network fabrics

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9860188-B2
Application number	US-201113334306-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 22, 2011
Priority date	Dec 22, 2011
Publication date	Jan 2, 2018
Grant date	Jan 2, 2018

Abstract

IEEE 802.1Q and Enhanced Transmission Selection provide only eight different traffic classes that may be used to control bandwidth in a particular physical connection (or link). Instead of relying only on these eight traffic classes to manage bandwidth, the embodiments discussed herein disclose using an Enhanced Transmission Selection scheduler that permits a network device to set the bandwidth for an individual virtual LAN. Allocating bandwidth in a port based on a virtual LAN ID permits a network device to allocate bandwidth to, e.g., millions of unique virtual LANs. Thus, this technique may increase the granular control of the network fabric and its performance.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A computer program product comprising:
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having computer-readable program code embodied therewith, the computer-readable program code is configured to:
establish a physical connection that connects two computing devices, wherein network traffic flowing through the physical connection is logically divided into a plurality of virtual local area networks (VLAN) channels;
allocate a bandwidth of the physical connection amongst at least two of the plurality of VLAN channels based on network traffic flowing through at least one of the plurality of VLAN channels; and
subdivide the bandwidth allocated to one of the plurality of VLAN channels amongst a plurality of traffic classes.

2. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the plurality of VLAN channels and the plurality of traffic classes are configured based on at least one of: IEEE 802.1Q and a derivative of IEEE 802.1Q.

3. The computer program product of claim 1 , further comprising computer-readable program code configured to:
determine whether the network traffic assigned to the one of the plurality of VLAN channels is using the allocated bandwidth,
if not, allocate at least a portion of the bandwidth assigned to the one of the plurality of VLAN channels to a different VLAN channel; and
reallocate the portion of the bandwidth from the different VLAN channel to the one of the plurality of VLAN channels.

4. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the VLAN channel is associated with a service VLAN (S-VLAN).

5. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein the VLAN channel is associated with a customer VLAN (C-VLAN) that is assigned to an S-VLAN.

6. The computer program product of claim 5 , wherein the S-VLAN and C-VLAN are configured based on at least one of: IEEE 802.1QinQ and a derivative of IEEE 802.1QinQ.

7. The computer program product of claim 1 , wherein only a subset of the plurality of VLAN channels of the physical connection are allocated bandwidth.

8. A network device, comprising:
a port configured to be connected via a physical connection to a computing device, wherein network traffic flowing through the physical connection is logically divided into a plurality of virtual local area networks (VLAN) channels; and
a bandwidth scheduler configured to allocate a bandwidth of the port amongst at least two of the plurality of VLAN channels based on network traffic flowing through at least one of the plurality of VLAN channels and subdivide the bandwidth allocated to one of the plurality of VLAN channels amongst a plurality of traffic classes.

9. The system of claim 8 , wherein the plurality of VLAN channels and the plurality of traffic classes are configured based on at least one of: IEEE 802.1Q and a derivative of IEEE 802.1Q.

10. The system of claim 8 , wherein the bandwidth scheduler is configured to:
determine whether the network traffic assigned to the one of the plurality of VLAN channels is using the allocated bandwidth,
if not, allocate at least a portion of the bandwidth assigned to the one of the plurality of VLAN channels to a different VLAN channel; and
reallocate the portion of the bandwidth from the different VLAN channel to the one of the plurality of VLAN channels.

11. The system of claim 8 , wherein the VLAN channel is associated with a service VLAN (S-VLAN).

12. The system of claim 8 , wherein the VLAN channel is associated with a customer VLAN (C-VLAN) that is assigned to an S-VLAN.

13. The system of claim 8 , wherein only a subset of the plurality of VLAN channels of the physical connection are allocated bandwidth.

14. The system of claim 12 , wherein the S-VLAN and C-VLAN are configured based on at least one of: IEEE 802.1QinQ and a derivative of IEEE 802.1QinQ.

Assignees

• Armstrong William J
• Basso Claude
• Chang Chih-Jen
• Gusat Mircea
• Minkenberg Cyriel J
• Neeser Fredy D
• Valk Kenneth M
• IBM

Inventors

• Armstrong William J
• Basso Claude
• Chang Chih-Jen
• Gusat Mircea
• Minkenberg Cyriel J
• Neeser Fredy D
• Valk Kenneth M

Classifications

• H04L12/465 Primary

  wherein a single frame includes a plurality of VLAN tags · CPC title

• H04L47/80 Primary

  Actions related to the user profile or the type of traffic · CPC title

• H04L41/0896

  Bandwidth or capacity management, i.e. automatically increasing or decreasing capacities (flow or congestion control using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation, H04L47/76) · CPC title

• H04L47/78 Primary

  Architectures of resource allocation · CPC title

• H04L49/354

  for supporting virtual local area networks [VLAN] · CPC title