Stateless IP Network Priority Flow Handling
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Solution Overview
Problem
Stateless IP network domains face challenges in maintaining high priority flows during congestion, as existing methods fail to effectively differentiate and manage priority traffic, leading to unnecessary termination of high priority flows when low priority flows can alleviate congestion.
Innovation Solution
An admission control method and preemption algorithm that identifies congestion at egress edge nodes, immediately terminates low priority flows, and only terminates high priority flows after a predetermined delay if congestion persists, ensuring high priority flows are preserved unless no alternative exists.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If stateless IP network domains use existing congestion management methods, then network scalability is improved, but high priority flows cannot be effectively differentiated and maintained during congestion
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies preliminary action by implementing admission control that pre-establishes priority flow reservations and policies before congestion occurs. The system pre-configures bandwidth guarantees and priority levels for different flow types, enabling immediate differentiation when congestion happens without requiring complex real-time decisions, thus maintaining high priority flows while preserving network scalability.
2Productivity
If low priority flows are terminated to relieve congestion, then congestion is removed, but high priority flows may be unnecessarily terminated if priority differentiation is not implemented
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies local quality by implementing priority-based differentiation at specific network nodes (ingress and egress routers) where flows are admitted and monitored. Each node maintains local state about flow priorities and applies local quality-of-service policies, allowing selective termination of only low priority flows while preserving high priority flows, thus achieving congestion relief without sacrificing reliability of critical traffic.
3Reliability
If per-flow state information is maintained in interior nodes, then priority flow handling is improved, but device complexity and storage requirements increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent applies the extraction principle by removing per-flow state maintenance from interior network nodes and concentrating it only at edge routers (ingress and egress points). Interior nodes operate in a stateless manner, forwarding packets based on simple priority markings without storing flow state information. This extraction of state management to network edges significantly reduces device complexity while maintaining reliable priority flow handling through admission control and monitored pre-emption at the boundaries.
Data Source
AI summary
A method of managing quality of service in an IP network is provided. The method comprises identifying, at an egress edge node of the network, that congestion is present in one or more routers within the network. Data flows for termination to remove the congestion are selected. At least one flow termination notification is sent from the egress edge node to an ingress edge node of the network, the at least one flow termination notification identifying the selected data flows. Low priority flows from the selected data flows are terminated at the ingress edge node immediately. High priority flows are terminated only if congestion is still present after a predetermined delay period. The delay may be applied in the ingress edge node or the egress edge node. The invention also provides a method for admitting low priority flows into the network only if the network has resources available for a number of high priority flows above a dynamically determined threshold.