The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Mar. 25, 2008
Filed:
Mar. 17, 2003
Brian E. Carpenter, Kilchberg, CH;
Clark D. Jeffries, Durham, NC (US);
Andreas Kind, Kilchberg, CH;
International Business Machines Corporation, Armonk, NY (US);
Abstract
Methods and apparatus are provided for metering data packets having a plurality of different packet lengths in a data communications network. A token count Tis incremented at a token increment rate CIR subject to an upper limit CBS on the token count. On arrival of a packet of length L tokens, it is determined if both T>0 and T+n≧L, where n is a defined number of tokens. If so, the data packet is categorized as in profile and L tokens are subtracted from the token count T. Otherwise the data packet is categorized out of profile. In some embodiments, n is set to a value in the range 0<n<(L−1) where Lis the maximum length of data packets to be metered. In other embodiments, n is varied in the range 0≦n≦(L−1) in dependence on at least one feedback signal indicating an operational condition in the network. The degree of conformance of the metering system is determined by the parameter n, whereby the conformance level can be tuned to particular multi-length packet environments.