Cisco Technology, Inc.

Man Pak Yip

David Anthony Hughes

Madhav V Marathe

Gary S Goldman

Vijayaraghavan Doraiswami

Kent Wayne Wendorf

Nitin Garg

Phong Bui

A method and apparatus are described for controlling connection admission for a connection request in a network. A first estimator estimates an equivalent cell rate (ECR) based on description of the connection request. The description includes a booking factor. A second estimator estimates a measured utilization factor for admitted connections in the network using measurements of data streams arriving at queues. A controller is coupled to the first and second estimators to generate an admission decision for the connection request based on the estimated ECR and the estimated measured utilization factor.

Hybrid connection admission control using combined model-based and measurement-based estimators

A method and system for the fair allocation of unused guaranteed bandwidth. Data segments of at least one class of service are received at each of a plurality of ingress line cards. Each class of service has a guaranteed percentage of transmission bandwidth. The system uses a must-serve bit to mark a number of data cells within each class of service. The number of cells marked depends on the guaranteed bandwidth percentage for the particular class of service. The mark is referred to as 'must-serve' since the scheduler must serve the particular class of service to the extent of the marked cells in order to meet the guaranteed bandwidth. The generic switch fabric monitors the cells and the switch CPU reallocates bandwidth so that only the marked cells are provided preferential transmission. Non-marked cells compete equally for excess bandwidth.

In-band must-serve indication from scheduler to switch fabric

A line card within a switching node coupled to a network is described. The line card includes a link interface for transmitting communications along a communication link within the network. The link interface further includes multiple logical interfaces having one or more partitions and one or more buffers. The partitions and the buffers accommodate multiple classes of service requirements for the communications transmitted within the network. In one embodiment, bandwidth management and connection admission control in a network encompasses both the line card and the system which uses the line card.

Bandwidth management and connection admission control in a network

A method and apparatus are described for determining an equivalent capacity of a transport device in a network switch for a traffic data stream. A data collector collects at least one traffic parameter for the traffic data stream arriving at a queue of the transport device for a specified quality of service (QoS) class. A bandwidth estimator is coupled to the data collector to estimate an effective bandwidth using the at least one traffic parameter. The estimated effective bandwidth corresponds to the equivalent capacity of the transport device.

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Sunnyvale, CA, United States of America

Man Pak Yip