Distributed Traffic Manager Scaling
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Current communication traffic management systems face challenges such as high upfront costs and limited scalability, making it difficult for small businesses to enter the market and adapt to growing needs, as they require pre-determined memory and queuing capacities that cannot be easily expanded.
Innovation Solution
A communication equipment system with multiple hardware-backpressurable queues and a controller that dynamically routes egress traffic to available traffic managers, allowing for scalable traffic management by adding or removing electronic circuit cards as needed, enabling 'pay-as-you-grow' capacity expansion and flexible traffic management.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If a centralized queuing point with sufficient memory depth is implemented to meet traffic management requirements, then traffic management capability is improved, but initial cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent divides the centralized queuing system into multiple distributed traffic managers, each handling a subset of traffic flows. This segmentation allows the system to achieve the required traffic management capability across multiple smaller memory units rather than requiring one large centralized memory, thereby reducing initial cost while maintaining adaptability.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically allocates traffic flows to available traffic managers based on current capacity and demand. This dynamic approach allows the system to adapt to varying traffic requirements without requiring over-provisioning of memory depth, enabling cost-effective scaling as traffic management needs evolve.
2Adaptability or versatility
If traffic management is scaled to fit unique customer applications with fixed queuing entities, then initial traffic management requirements are met, but flexibility to expand later is reduced
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements a dynamic traffic management architecture where traffic flows can be dynamically assigned to different traffic managers based on available capacity. This dynamic allocation provides flexibility to expand traffic management capabilities as needed without requiring a complete system redesign, while the complexity of individual queuing entities remains manageable.
Solution Approach 2:
Each traffic manager is designed as a universal unit capable of handling multiple traffic flows and adapting to different customer applications. This multi-functionality allows the system to meet diverse traffic management requirements using standardized units, providing flexibility for expansion without proportionally increasing device complexity.
3Productivity
If memory depth is increased to support growing traffic management needs, then traffic management capability is improved, but initial cost increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent segments the traffic management function across multiple independent traffic managers, each with its own memory resources. This allows the system to achieve high overall traffic management capability and productivity by distributing workloads across multiple units, avoiding the need for a single large memory system that would require high initial investment.
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically balances traffic flows across available traffic managers based on current capacity and performance requirements. This dynamic load balancing enables the system to maintain high productivity by utilizing available memory resources efficiently, without requiring excessive memory depth to be provisioned in advance.
Data Source
Figure 1
Figure 2
Figure 3
AI summary
Communication traffic management systems and methods are disclosed. One or more traffic managers may be provided for managing communication traffic to be sent toward respective groups of one or more destinations. A determination is made as to whether one traffic manager or more than one traffic manager is provided. If one traffic manager is provided, then communication traffic is transferred to the traffic manager. In the case where more than one traffic manager is provided, received communication traffic is transferred to a traffic manager for a destination toward which the communication traffic is to be sent. Traffic managers may be added to or removed from communication equipment to provide varying levels of traffic management.