Telefonaktiebolaget Lm Ericsson (publ)

Ericsson Ab

Timothy John Lynch

Sunny Y Wang

Srikanth Chavali

Sudhakar Chunduru

Sudhagar Chinnaswamy

Lars Martin

Samvid S Shah

Ramanathan Lakshmikanthan

Peter Arberg

Pritam Baruah

Francois Lemarchand

Arun Sharma

Christian Stabel Daudt

Scott Ripley Mordock

Peter Lam

Methods and apparatus for dynamically configuring a parent circuit through a subscriber record on an authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) server responsive to an authorization event for the subscriber session on the network element. According to one embodiment of the invention, the AAA server accesses the subscriber record for a subscriber session on the network element. Based on this subscriber record, a set of one or more attributes for a subscriber circuit and a set of one or more attributes for a parent circuit of the subscriber circuit are determined. The network element applies the set of subscriber circuit attributes to the subscriber circuit and the set of parent circuit attributes to the parent circuit.

Dynamically configuring attributes of a parent circuit on a network element

A method and apparatus for a metadata-driven upgrade of a network element is described. A network element comprises an active and backup controller card and receives new software to be installed on that network element. In addition, the network element installs the software on the backup controller card and synchronizes the active state of the network element to the backup controller card. Furthermore, the network element uses metadata to translate the active state to the format used by the new software.

In-service software upgrade utilizing metadata-driven state translation

Improved packet scheduling methods and apparatuses for use in, among other things, a network interface of a router (or other network element) are described herein. In one such improved method, packets buffered in a network interface are segmented for transmission on a communications link into multiple scheduling domains each being represented by a scheduling tree, each scheduling tree is assigned to a separate virtual port scheduling engine, and a top level scheduling engine is employed to schedule between the outputs of the virtual port scheduling engines to make the final choice of which buffered packet to transmit on the communications link (e.g., to move to the transmit queue of the network interface). By having the virtual port scheduling engines operate in parallel and substantially independently of each other, the rate at which packet can be moved into the transmit queue may increase greatly, thereby increasing the bandwidth of the network interface of the router.

Packet scheduling method and apparatus

Service groups are dynamically created and members are dynamically assigned. A network element receives a request for a subscriber session and transmits an authentication request to a AAA server. The network element receives an authentication reply from the AAA server that includes dynamic service group configuration information that indicates that the subscriber session should be part of a service group and defines the criteria for the network element to dynamically create and join that subscriber session to a service group if an appropriate service group does not exist or dynamically join that subscriber session to an existing service group. The network element derives a dynamic service group identifier from attributes of the subscriber session based on instructions in the dynamic service group configuration information. Based on that dynamic service group identifier and service group attribute information in the configuration information, the network element dynamically creates and joins the subscriber session to a service group if an appropriate service group does not exist or dynamically joins the subscriber session to an existing appropriate service group.

Dynamic service groups based on session attributes

Techniques for multiple protocol cross layer customized QoS propagation and mapping are described herein. In one embodiment of the invention, a first QoS code of a packet is determined, the packet having a first encapsulation layer and a second encapsulation layer, the first QoS code being included within the first encapsulation of the packet. From application of a first cross layer QoS map to the first QoS code, determining that the second encapsulation layer of the packet should be used in determining a QoS classification. The reference point to the second encapsulation layer is stored. The QoS classification is determined with use of the reference point. A representation of the QoS classification is stored in a QoS descriptor and the QoS descriptor is used to influence processing of the packet. Other methods and apparatuses are also described.

Multiple protocol cross layer customized QoS propagation and mapping

Growing community of inventors

San Francisco, CA, United States of America

Timothy John Lynch