Multiplex communications – Pathfinding or routing – Switching a message which includes an address header
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-08
2001-07-17
Vincent, David R. (Department: 2732)
Multiplex communications
Pathfinding or routing
Switching a message which includes an address header
Reexamination Certificate
active
06262983
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a programmable network in which in a network system interconnecting a plurality of computers via a network, a program is loaded to a network node on a route of a flow constituted of packets, and the node executes the program for each packet.
For a network system in which data is processed and then transmitted, a method is known by which a video is compressed and packetized for each wavelet band, as disclosed in JP-A-7-15609. The invention provides a video transfer method, a video transmitter, a video receiver and an video transfer apparatus, in which a video is transferred in accordance with a network bandwidth on a video reception side and a decoding capability of the decoder, even if which capabilities are inferior to a network bandwidth on a video transmission side and an encoding capability of the encoder. The video transmitter packetizes video data for each wavelet band, adds a predetermined classifier to the packet, and then transmits it. If video data transmitted by ATM (Asynchronous Transfer Mode) network, a priority order is added to a cell header to transmit a cell. On the network which transfers video data, a cell having a higher priority order is transferred with a priority over other cells when the network is congested. The video receiver checks the classifier of the received video data, selects only necessary video data and decodes it in accordance with the decoding capability of the decoder to reproduce the video data.
A programmable network is known as described in “A Survey of Active Network Research” in “IEEE Communications Magazine”, January issue of 1997, at pp. 80-86. In the programmable network, each network node constituting the network executes a packet processing program for each packet. For example, the above-described transfer with a priority order by ATM is realized by software using a program loaded at each network node. This system can be realized on the network having a QoS (Quality of Service) control function of ATM, e.g., on an IP (Internet Protocol) network such as the Internet.
For the IP network, techniques are also known by which a routing process for controlling a route of packets via network nodes can be speeded up by using a dedicated processor.
In the programmable network system according to the conventional techniques described above, all packets are processed by software using a program loaded at each network node. Therefore, although packets to be processed by software and packets not to be processed are both input to a network node, software processing is performed for both types of the packets so that a process efficiency is not good.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a programmable network for processing a packet by a packet processing program at each program node. Only the packet necessary to be processed is processed and the packet unnecessary to be processed is transferred to a routing processor, so that a transmission speed can be improved and the throughput of the programmable network can be improved.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a method of loading a program in associated program nodes of a network dynamically and efficiently.
In order to achieve the above object, a network node constituting a network comprises: a program processor for executing a packet processing program to each packet corresponding to a flow; a routing processor for performing a routing process for an input packet; and a packet classification unit for analyzing the input packet to transfer a packet belonging to the flow to the program processor and transfer other packets to the routing processor. The network node has a function of receiving the packet processing program via the network and making it executable.
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patent: 5619501 (1997-04-01), Tamer et al.
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patent: 6172990 (2001-01-01), Deb et al.
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Ikezawa Mitsuru
Kameyama Tatsuya
Mimura Itaru
Suzuki Toshiaki
Yoshizawa Satoshi
Antonelli Terry Stout & Kraus LLP
Hitachi Ltd
Vincent David R.
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