Alcatel Lucent

Ravi S Prasad

Tirunell V Lakshman

Marina Thottan

A lightweight probabilistic mechanism used to estimate the number of active flows, which estimate is used to determine the probability of admitting a new flow into the network. In one embodiment, a method for controlling admission of new flows at a node in a network of nodes interconnected by links includes: (a) for each of a plurality of incoming packets arriving at the node, each incoming packet corresponding to an active flow traversing the node: (a1) randomly selecting a packet from an output buffer of the node; (a2) determining whether the incoming packet is from the same active flow as the randomly-selected packet; and (a3) updating an estimate of the number of active flows traversing the node based on the determination of step (a2); and (b) determining whether to admit or drop part or all of a new flow at the node based on the estimated number of active flows traversing the node.

Growing community of inventors

Atlanta, GA, United States of America

Ravi S Prasad