Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput – Computer network managing – Network resource allocating
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-25
2003-09-23
Najjar, Saleh (Department: 2157)
Electrical computers and digital processing systems: multicomput
Computer network managing
Network resource allocating
C709S220000, C709S224000, C709S225000, C709S232000, C370S351000, C370S352000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06625650
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates in general to communications systems and more specifically to a system for provisioning resources and billing for the use of those resources in a communication network.
The Internet and new broadband carrier networks are fast becoming the conduit for vast and diverse communications and commerce. For example, the Internet and various broadband carriers already provide for huge amounts of data transfer in supporting the World Wide Web (WWW, or the “web”). Using the web standards, users are able to obtain discrete amounts of information, typically by accessing “web pages” that are relatively small in size in terms of the data required to display a web page. However, a human user may select many web pages in the space of a minute so that even a small wait for each web page's information may be intolerable. Another form of data access over the Internet is for larger files, such as image files, executables, etc. The large size of these files often means that a transfer of a file is not expected to occur very quickly. As such, the transfer proceeds at a lower priority, often in the “background” while a user is performing other tasks. Other types of data transfers are processor-initiated so that no human is involved.
Other types of transfer involve very large amounts of streaming data over an extended period of time. Examples of this type of data are voice and video transfers. Note that in these cases the Internet is being called upon to handle data traffic that has previously been supported by separate, dedicated infrastructure systems such as the telephone network, radio network; or broadcast or cable television networks. Still other types of data “traffic” exist on today's Internet. A high growth area is in electronic commerce, or “e-commerce.” This will ultimately require high-security, high-priority transfers of financial information. Companies are using the Internet to transfer information between branch offices or remote employees, databases or the companies' separate intranets. In addition to the human-oriented traffic, there is overhead traffic in handling the messaging protocols; automated, or machine-to-machine communications, etc.
Some of the traffic types presented above require low priority. For example, most people expect that a large file's transfer time can vary widely depending on overall Internet traffic. On the other hand, a customer using the Internet for real-time telephony communications would become very irate if the service was not of high quality, or was erratic. Thus, it is desirable to guarantee an Internet telephone user with a certain level of service, or bandwidth. Another issue is data security. Some information such as financial transfers, sensitive or proprietary data, may need to be treated differently to ensure authenticity and security. Customers, whether businesses, educational institutions or individuals best understand their information bandwidth needs and security needs.
In view of the growing importance of the Internet as a communications and commerce system, it is astounding to realize that the Internet provides very meager mechanisms for guaranteeing rates of delivery of information, or “bandwidth,” for different traffic types or for different message communications. Devices such as switches, routers, hubs, backbones, gateways and other devices that route or transfer information over the Internet can not differentiate the information they are sending at anything more than a rudimentary level. In addition, Today's Internet does not provide any efficient mechanism for monitoring the flow of information through transfer devices such as routers, switches, servers or the physical links, themselves. In short this means that not only does the Internet fail to provide flexible and precise allocation of bandwidth, but even if such allocation could be accomplished there is no way that an Internet Service Provider (ISP), or “carrier,” could account, and thereby charge, for a customer's subscribed, tailored services.
While the Internet, and its associated protocols, have generally succeeded in being able to scale up to the massive number of users it is called upon to handle and amount of information that it is relied upon to transfer, the Internet has failed in several areas to provide an efficient and effective commerce and enterprise infrastructure for many traditional commerce and communication approaches that it is being asked to replace.
Internet Service Providers (ISPs) seek to deliver services transparent to users. For example, users may transfer voice information, surf the web, purchase products and perform other information manipulation over a single physical link to a major Internet “backbone” that is transparent to the user. Additional users can be concerned with other forms of information such as video, large database downloads, etc. All of these users (and there may be thousands over a single link) can generate, and require, intermittent transfers of high and low bandwidth information. Further, the differences in the data transfers for each of the different types of information, multiplied by the large number of users, make the traffic flow through the physical link highly erratic and unpredictable.
In the face of this fragmented traffic is the desire by Service Providers to be able to regulate the traffic so that the link utilization is maximized and to monitor traffic so it can be billed for its value. In other words, a Service Provider desires to keep the maximum data rate, or bandwidth, possible flowing through the link and bill for as many different services possible. However, attempts to do this have been largely unsuccessful because any monitoring and control of the network traffic causes delays in the transfer of information. Such delays can range from harmless through cataclysmic, depending on the type of information being transferred. Thus, underutilization of links has been the norm for Internet traffic.
In addition to maximizing throughput of a link, Service Providers are also interested in providing differing levels of service to different customers. This desire stems from traditional enterprise approaches.
For example, with a traditional telephone system, a telephone company is able to charge a user per telephone line, per call, per feature (e.g., call waiting), etc. Further, telephone lines come in different capacity and abilities to handle voice or digital data transfers. Examples are plain old telephone system (POTS) lines, integrated services digital network (ISDN), T1, T3, and other types of lines. This provides a very precise way for a telephone company to provide a level of service to a customer, and to charge appropriately for the level of service provided. This is in contrast to the Internet where all of the communication traffic from many sources, and of many communication types, must fit, at some point, through a single same link, or a few links.
As an example, a large network operator may have an OC-48 SONET backbone. This backbone is capable of supporting two-way communications at 2.4 gigabits per second in each direction. No single service, or application, could fill this huge bandwidth pipe. However, the Service Provider can “aggregate” services by provisioning the pipe for multiple services at multiple price points as shown in Table I, below:
TABLE I
Price
Band-
Quality
Service
per minute
width
Requirements
Voice
$.02
64 kbps
Constant
per user
Bit Rate
Video
$.30
384 Kbps
Variable
(Low Quality)
per user
Bit Rate
Video
$.40
1 Mbps
Variable
(Hi Quality)
Bit Rate
LAN
$.40
10 Mbps
Low
Extension
Quality, Best Effort
Storage
$.60
100 Mbps
Low
Area Ext.
Quality Data Only
Virtual
$.65
40 Mbps
Hi
Private Net
Security, Hi Quality
In order to provide all the services in Table I at the variable bit rates as shown, the sessions and users must be “provisioned” within the fiberoptic trunk. Preferably, users are provisioned at different qualities of service based on real-time varying parameters. These parameters are only k
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