Load Balancing via Packet Importance and Congestion Feedback
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current load balancing techniques fail to effectively distribute data traffic among multiple transmission paths, leading to uneven congestion and quality of service (QoS) issues, especially when paths are fully utilized, and do not account for the importance of data packets.
Innovation Solution
A method and system that prioritize data packets based on importance, redirecting them from congested paths to less congested ones using feedback metrics, ensuring optimal load balancing and maintaining quality of service (QoS) by marking packets with values indicating their importance and using a state-less approach to scale.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Productivity
If basic load balancing is used to spread traffic across multiple paths, then overall throughput is improved, but congestion distribution becomes uneven and QoS deteriorates when paths are fully utilized
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by marking data packets with importance values and treating different packets differently based on their priority. High-priority packets are routed through less congested paths while low-priority packets can tolerate congestion, ensuring that critical traffic maintains QoS even when overall network throughput is maximized
Solution Approach 2:
The system dynamically changes routing parameters based on congestion feedback. The transmitting node adjusts path selection by comparing congestion metrics from multiple paths and redirecting flows accordingly, allowing the network to adapt to changing conditions and maintain QoS while optimizing throughput
2Adaptability or versatility
If adaptive load balancing is used to distribute traffic based on link utilization, then network utilization improves, but user differentiation and QoE consistency deteriorate
Solution Approach 1:
The patent implements user differentiation by assigning different importance values to different users or traffic types. This allows the system to provide differentiated QoS where premium users receive preferential treatment in path selection, maintaining consistent QoE across users while still achieving high network utilization through adaptive load balancing
3Ease of manufacture
If static configuration is used for load balancing, then implementation simplicity is maintained, but adaptability to congestion changes deteriorates
Solution Approach 1:
The system uses feedback mechanisms where receiving nodes send congestion metrics back to transmitting nodes. This allows the network to dynamically adapt to congestion changes without complex manual reconfiguration, maintaining ease of deployment while achieving adaptive load balancing through automated feedback-driven path selection
Data Source
AI summary
A method and a transmitting node for redirecting of a flow of data packets to a path of alternative paths, and a method and a receiving node for enabling redirection of a flow of data packets to a path of alternative paths, where data packets are marked with a value indicating the importance of the data packets. The method for directing directs one or more flows of data packets for the alternative paths, wherein data packets marked with a higher value are prioritized over data packets marked with a lower value. Based on feedback information, the transmitting node redirects a flow of data packets to a second path of the alternative paths, if the metric of congestion indicates a higher congestion on the first path than on the second path.