Telecom Italia

Enrico Scarrone

Giovanni Stea

Luciano Lenzini

Enzo Mingozzi

Vinicio Vercellone

Massimo Sassi

A system for scheduling utilization of a service resource by a plurality of flows of information packets, wherein the flows include rate-guaranteed synchronous flows and best-effort asynchronous flows, the asynchronous flows exploiting the service capacity of the resource left unexploited by the synchronous flows. A server visits the flows, in subsequent rounds, by visiting first the synchronous flows followed by the asynchronous flows. The server is configured for detecting any backlogged synchronous flow, and when the server visits any said backlogged synchronous flow, it allows the backlogged synchronous flow to utilize the resource for a given time, whereby the synchronous flows have a guaranteed transmission window on each round. When the server visits any asynchronous flow, the time elapsed since the last visit by the server to the same asynchronous flow is determined. If the visit to the asynchronous flow occurs later than expected based on a reference round time, the asynchronous flow being visited is restrained from utilizing the resource for the ongoing round, and if the visit occurs earlier than expected based on the reference round time the asynchronous flow being visited is allowed to utilize the resource for a respective given time.

Method and system for scheduling utilization of resources, related communication network and computer program product

Each synchronous flow (h=1, 2, N) is associated to a respective synchronous capacity value (H) indicative of the maximum amount of time for which a synchronous flow can be served before relinquishing the token. Each asynchronous flow (I=1, 2, N) is, on the other hand, associated to a respective indicative value of the delay to be recovered so that the respective queue has the right to be served and to another value indicating the instant in which the server visited the respective queue in the pervious cycle. Each queue associated to a synchronous flow (h) is therefore served for a maximum amount of time that is equal to the aforesaid synchronous capacity value, while each queue associated to an asynchronous flow (i) is only served if the server's visit takes place with anticipation with respect to the expected instant. This anticipation is determined as the difference between the expected rotation time, needed by the server () to complete a visit cycle (T) of the queues associated to the aforesaid flows (h, i), and the time that has passed since the server's previous visit () and the delay accumulated. This difference, if positive, defines the maximum service time for the asynchronous queue. If the queue is empty when the server visits it, the server () moves on to the next queue even before the relative maximum service time has passed.

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Turin, Italy

Enrico Scarrone