Cisco Technology, Inc.

Yoram Snir

Yoram Ramberg

Shai Mohaban

Itzhak Parnafes

John Strassner

Ron Cohen

John M Schnizlein

Ilan Frenkel

Roman Geller

A method and apparatus is provided for retrieving and storing quality of service policy management information using a directory service in a manner that enforces read/write consistency and enables read/write concurrency. A directory information tree manager is created and stored in the directory service. One or more directory information trees are created in the directory service in association with the directory information tree manager. Each directory information tree is associated with a sub-tree that represents quality of service policy information, and each directory information tree has a validity period value. When a process needs quality of service policy management information, the system determines which of the directory information trees is a currently active directory information tree. The QoS information is retrieved from the currently active directory information tree only during a time period within the validity period value thereof.

Method and apparatus for retrieving network quality of service policy information from a directory in a quality of service policy management system

A method and apparatus are provided for optimizing retrieval of network resources. In one embodiment, a method of optimizing access to a network resource is implemented in a computer program executed by a router, cache server, or proxy server. A network resource that contains one or more embedded symbolic host name references is received. A network address corresponding to each of the embedded symbolic host name references is determined. A modified copy of the network resource is created and stored; in the modified copy, a network address is substituted for each corresponding embedded symbolic host name reference. Thereafter, the modified copy of the network resource in responding to all subsequent client requests for the network resource, thereby greatly reducing the required number of network address lookup operations. In one specific embodiment, IP addresses are determined using DNS queries for the hostname portion of all URLs that are embedded in a Web page using image, applet, object, or embed tags. The IP addresses are stored in place of the hostname portions in a modified copy of the Web page, typically in a cache. As a result, when the modified page is subsequently served to clients, the clients need not carry out DNS resolution of all the embedded URLs, resulting in reduced network message traffic and more rapid page display.

System and method of optimizing retrieval of network resources by identifying and substituting embedded symbolic host name references with network addresses in accordance with substitution policies

A method of automatically establishing differentiated services quality of service treatment for a return packet flow that is associated with an originating packet flow in a network is disclosed. The originating packet flow is received, and it is determined that one or more packets in the originating packet flow are marked with a DSCP value that matches a policy rule that instruct setting of a specified DSCP value to the return packet flow. In response, information identifying the originating packet flow and a second DSCP value for marking the return packet flow is created and stored. When a corresponding return packet flow is received and determined to be associated with the originating packet flow, packets of the return packet flow are automatically marked with the second DSCP value. Once the packet flow terminates, all stored information is removed.

Method and apparatus for automatically establishing bi-directional differentiated services treatment of flows in a network

A method and apparatus for storing policies for use in policy-based management of quality of service treatments of network data traffic flows are described. The policies are stored in the form of policy statements. Each policy statement applies to a specific application that runs in the network. Policy statements are stored in a Repository, which may be a Directory Server or an X.500 directory. A policy server may create and store policies in the Repository based on information about the application, the network devices, and the quality of service treatments that the network devices can apply to a traffic flow. An application program and the policy server network device can retrieve the policy information from the Repository using appropriate function calls or an access protocol such as LDAP.

Method and apparatus for storing policies for policy-based management of network quality of service

A method and apparatus for storing policies for use in policy-based management of quality of service treatments of network data traffic flows are described. The policies are stored in the form of policy statements. Each policy statement applies to a specific application that runs in the network. Each policy statement includes a condition and a network service to be applied to all traffic matching the condition. Each condition comprises one or more basic condition components connected by operators. Each basic condition comprises a basic policy parameter identifier, an operator and an operand. Policy statements are stored in a Repository, which may be a Directory Server or an X.500 directory. A policy server may create and store policies in the Repository based on information about the application, the network devices, and the quality of service treatments that the network devices can apply to a traffic flow. An application program and the policy server network device can retrieve the policy information from the Repository using appropriate function calls or an access protocol such as LDAP. In an alternative embodiment, a complete quality of service directory schema for representing abstract policies is disclosed.

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D.N., Israel

Yoram Snir