Packeteer, Inc.

Blue Coat Systems, Inc.

Robert E Purvy

Michael Robert Morford

Guy G Riddle

Mark Hill

Methods, apparatuses, and systems directed to cost-aware bandwidth management schemes that are adaptive to monitored network or application performance attributes. In one embodiment, the present invention supports bandwidth management systems that adapt to network conditions, while managing tradeoffs between bandwidth costs and application performance. One implementation of the present invention tracks bandwidth usage over an applicable billing period and applies a statistical model to allow for bursting to address increased network loading conditions that degrade network or application performance. One implementation allows for bursting at selected time periods based on computations minimizing cost relative to an applicable billing model. One implementation of the present invention is also application-aware, monitoring network application performance and increasing bandwidth allocations in response to degradations in the performance of selected applications.

Cost-aware, bandwidth management systems adaptive to network conditions

Methods, apparatuses and systems that dynamically adjust the selection of differentiated network services for selected classes of traffic in response to changing network conditions or application performance levels. In one implementation, the present invention allows for a differentiated network services scheme that adapts to existing network conditions and, in one implementation, selects higher, generally more expensive classes of differentiated network service for certain data flows when the performance of selected applications degrades below a threshold level. The present invention, in one implementation, allows for bandwidth cost savings without sacrificing application performance.

Adaptive, application-aware selection of differentiated network services

Methods, apparatuses and systems allowing for bandwidth management schemes responsive to utilization characteristics associated with individual users. In one embodiment, the present invention allows network administrators to penalize users who carry out specific questionable or suspicious activities, such as the use of proxy tunnels to disguise the true nature of the data flows in order to evade classification and control by bandwidth management devices. In one embodiment, each individual user may be accorded an initial suspicion score. Each time the user is associated with a questionable or suspicious activity (for example, detecting the set up of a connection to an outside HTTP tunnel, or peer-to-peer application flow), his or her suspicion score is downgraded. Data flows corresponding to users with sufficiently low suspicion scores, in one embodiment, can be treated in a different manner from data flows associated with other users. For example, different or more rigorous classification rules and policies can be applied to the data flows associated with suspicious users.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Robert E Purvy