Adaptive network with automatic scaling

Abstract

A method for automatic scaling the processing capacity and bandwidth capacity of a network includes providing a network comprising a plurality of traffic processing units and a plurality of network links. Next, providing monitoring means for monitoring processing capacity demand and bandwidth capacity demand of the network. Next, providing managing means for adding traffic processing units to the network, removing traffic processing units from the network, connecting links to the network and disconnecting links from the network. Next, monitoring processing capacity demand and bandwidth capacity demand of the network via the monitoring means and then dynamically adjusting processing capacity of the network by selectively adding or removing traffic processing units in the network via the managing means upon observation of processing capacity demand increase or processing capacity demand decrease, respectively. The method also includes dynamically adjusting bandwidth capacity of the network by selectively connecting or disconnecting links in the network via the managing means upon observation of bandwidth capacity demand increase or bandwidth capacity decrease, respectively.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED CO-PENDING APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61 / 156,069 filed on Feb. 27, 2009 and entitled METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR COMPUTER CLOUD MANAGEMENT, which is commonly assigned and the contents of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference.[0002]This application claims the benefit of U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 61 / 165,250 filed on Mar. 31, 2009 and entitled CLOUD ROUTING NETWORK FOR BETTER INTERNET PERFORMANCE, RELIABILITY AND SECURITY, which is commonly assigned and the contents of which are expressly incorporated herein by reference.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0003]The present invention relates to network design and management and in particular to a system and a method for an adaptive network with automatic capacity scaling in response to load demand changes.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0004]Networking changed the information technology industry by enabling different computing systems to c...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013]Among the advantages of the invention may be one or more of the following. The network system is adaptive so that it always “provision” optimal capacity in response to the demand, eliminating capacity waste without sacrificing service quality, as shown in FIG. 2A. The network system is horizontally scalable. Its capacity increases linearly by just adding more traffic processing nodes to the system. It is also fault-tolerant. Failure of individual components within the system does not cause system failure. In fact, the system assumes component failures as common occurrences and is able to run on commodity hardware to deliver high performance and high availability services.

Problems solved by technology

When there is not enough capacity, problems ranging from slowness, congestion, to packet loss and malfunctioning would occur.

The problems of such approaches include high acquisition cost and over-provisioning or under-provisioning of capacity.

Acquiring all the traffic processing components and setting up the links upfront can be very expensive for a large-scale network.

The cost to build a large-scale network can range from millions of dollars to even higher.

However, normal bandwidth demand and processing demand are significantly lower than peak demands.

Thus a significant portion of capacity is wasted.

For large-scale networks, such waste is significant and ranges from thousands of dollars to millions of dollars or even higher.

Further, such over-provisioning creates a significant carbon footprint.

Because prior art networks are based on fixed capacity, service suffers when capacity demand overwhelms the fixed capacity and waste occurs when demand is below the provisioned capacity.

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