KR101233671B1 - Communication device comprising multiple interfaces, data packet transmitting method and interface assigning method - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: A communications device including multiple interfaces capable of reducing the unnecessary electrical power waste of the communications device, a data packet transmission method thereof and an interface assigning method thereof are provided to minimize the use of interfaces having a large amount of energy consumption, thereby reducing the operation costs of a system. CONSTITUTION: All virtual interfaces are set up as in an idle state(S900). A switch senses the traffic inflow into a virtual interface(S902). The virtual interface in an active state is indexed(S904). The switch selects an arbitrary VLC(Virtual Lane Class) from a virtual interface set(S906). The presence of the virtual interface in the idle state is determined among the elements of the selected VLC(S908). The virtual interface in the idle state is changed into an active state(S910). The presence of the virtual interface in the idle state is determined by the neighbor VLC of the selected VLC(S912). A different VLC is selected(S914). The state of the virtual interface and the state of the virtual interface set are initialized(S916). [Reference numerals] (AA) Start; (BB,GG,II,KK) No; (CC,DD,HH,JJ) Yes; (EE) Initializing VL, VLC states; (FF) End; (S900) Setting up all interfaces in an idle state; (S902) Sensing traffic inflow?; (S904) Indexing virtual interface in an active state; (S906) Selecting an arbitrary VLC, i=1; (S908) Determining the presence of idle VL among the selected VLC elements?; (S910) Converting the indexed virtual interface into the idle VL in the VLC; (S912) Determining the presence of the idle VL in the neighbor VLC of the selected VLC; (S914) Selecting the arbitrary idle VLC

Description

Communication device including multiple interfaces, data packet transmission method and interface allocation method {COMMUNICATION DEVICE COMPRISING MULTIPLE INTERFACES, DATA PACKET TRANSMITTING METHOD AND INTERFACE ASSIGNING METHOD}

The present invention relates to a communication apparatus including multiple interfaces, a method of transmitting data packets thereof, and an interface allocation method.

As the number of Internet users is increasing worldwide, high-capacity services are increasing, and new terminals such as smart phones are developed, traffic is exploding. Accordingly, the importance of energy saving technology is emerging in the field of information and communication.

On the other hand, current high performance communication devices include multiple interfaces that perform the same functions and operations. A typical communication device keeps all interfaces active, consuming high power regardless of the amount of traffic it processes.

In order to save energy, there is a need for a method of dynamically allocating an interface according to a traffic load on a communication device.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in an effort to provide a communication device including multiple interfaces, a data packet transmission device thereof, and an interface allocation method.

In a data packet transmission method of a communication apparatus having multiple interfaces according to an aspect of the present invention, a method of transmitting a data packet through a plurality of virtual interfaces, and the plurality of virtual interfaces to minimize the number of optical interfaces for transmitting the data packet Converting an array of s, assigning the data packet to the optical interface, and transmitting the data packet over the optical interface.

According to an aspect of the present invention, a communication apparatus having a multiple interface receives a data packet through a plurality of virtual interfaces, an interface distribution unit for multiplexing the data packet, and a multiplexed data packet through at least one electrical interface. And a transmitting unit configured to transmit the received data packet to at least one optical interface and transmit the received data packet through the at least one optical interface, wherein the interface distribution unit is configured to minimize the number of optical interfaces transmitting the data packet. Convert an array of multiple virtual interfaces.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided an interface allocation method of a communication device having multiple interfaces, the method comprising: detecting data packets flowing through a plurality of virtual interfaces, indexing a virtual interface into which the data packets are introduced, and an arbitrary virtual interface Selecting a set—a set of virtual interfaces carried over the same optical interface—and converting an indexed virtual interface into an idle virtual interface in the set of virtual interfaces.

A communication device in which the traffic amount and power consumption are proportional to each other may be implemented. Accordingly, unnecessary power waste of the communication device can be reduced.

In particular, by minimizing the use of energy-consuming interfaces in communication devices with multiple interfaces, the operating cost of the system can be significantly reduced without significantly modifying the existing Ethernet standard configuration.

1 shows a communication device having multiple interfaces.
2 illustrates a communication device with multiple interfaces in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.
3 illustrates a bit flow of a physical layer of a communication device based on a 100G Ethernet system.
4 illustrates a bit flow of a physical layer of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention.
5 is a diagram illustrating a specific operation of the switch 311 according to an embodiment of the present invention.
6 is a diagram illustrating a specific operation of the switch 361 according to an embodiment of the present invention.
7 is a diagram illustrating adding information of a virtual interface before conversion to a data packet according to an embodiment of the present invention.
8 is a diagram illustrating that the present invention tears down information of a virtual interface before conversion added to a data packet according to an embodiment.
9 is a flowchart illustrating an array conversion method of a virtual interface according to an embodiment of the present invention.
FIG. 10 is a graph illustrating an energy saving effect of converting a virtual interface arrangement according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings so that those skilled in the art may easily implement the present invention. The present invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. In the drawings, parts irrelevant to the description are omitted in order to clearly describe the present invention, and like reference numerals designate like parts throughout the specification.

Throughout the specification, when an element is referred to as "comprising ", it means that it can include other elements as well, without excluding other elements unless specifically stated otherwise.

Also, the term "part" in the description means a unit for processing at least one function or operation, which may be implemented by hardware, software, or a combination of hardware and software.

1 shows a communication device having multiple interfaces.

Referring to FIG. 1, a communication device includes a transmitting module 100 and a receiving module 200. The transmitting module 100 includes a plurality of input interfaces 110-1, 110-2,..., 110-m, and the receiving module 200 includes a plurality of output interfaces 210-1, 210-2, ..., 210-m). The transmission module 100 and the reception module 200 are connected to a plurality of transmission interfaces 120-1, 120-2, ..., 120-n.

In the following description, an interface may be mixed with a lane.

As such, a typical communication device has multiple interfaces that perform the same functions and operations. If multiple interfaces are always active regardless of the amount of traffic, the power consumption of the communication device is large.

Thus, there is a need to control some or all of the multiple interfaces in an active state based on the amount of traffic.

2 illustrates a communication device with multiple interfaces in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 2, the transmission module 100 controls the number of transmission interfaces 120-1, 120-2,..., 120-n that are activated based on the traffic amount.

To this end, the transmission module 100 receives a data packet through some or all of the plurality of input interfaces 110-1, 110-2,..., 110-m. Then, the transmission module 100 is activated, that is, the input interface (110-1, 110-) so that the number of transmission interfaces (120-1, 120-2, ..., 120-n) for transmitting the data packet is minimized 2, ..., 110-m). At this time, the transmission module 100 adds the information of the input interface (110-1, 110-2, ..., 110-m) before conversion to the data packet.

The receiving module 200 receives the data packet through the transmission interfaces 120-1, 120-2, ..., 120-n. The receiving module 200 interprets the information of the input interfaces 110-1, 110-2,..., 110-m before conversion added to the data packet and outputs the data packets to the output interfaces 210-1, 210. -2, ..., 210-m).

Accordingly, m: m lane communication is possible to ensure off balancing of traffic load in a communication device having multiple interfaces.

Hereinafter, an interface allocation method according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the 100G BASE-4R physical layer structure specified in the 40 / 100G Ethernet standard IEEE 802.3ba.

3 illustrates a bit flow of a physical layer of a communication device based on a 100G Ethernet system.

Referring to FIG. 3, the transmitting module 100 may include a transmitting physical coding sub-layer (PCS) 300, a transmitting multi-lane distribution (MLD) 310, and a transmitting physical medium (PMA). Attachment (Physical Media Coupling) 320 and transmit Physical Medium Dependent (PMD) 330.

The receiving module 200 includes a receiving PMD 340, a receiving PMA 350, a receiving MLD 360 and a receiving PCS 370.

The transmitting module 100 and the receiving module 200 are four optical lanes of 25 Gbps (Optical Lane, OL0, OL1, OL2, OL3), and 10 electrical lanes of 10 Gbps (EL0, EL1, ..., EL9), 20 virtual lanes (VL0, VL1, ..., VL19) of 5Gbps. Hereinafter, the optical lane may be mixed with the 25G interface or the optical interface, the electrical lane may be mixed with the 10G interface or the electrical interface, and the virtual lane may be mixed with the 5G interface or the virtual interface.

In the transmitting module 100, the transmitting PCS 300 transmits an 8 octet-sized packet to the transmitting MLD 310 through 20 virtual lanes.

Transmit MLD 310 includes ten 2: 1 multiplexers 310-1, 310-2, ..., 310-10. Each multiplexer 310-1, 310-2,..., 310-10 multiplexes a packet received through an adjacent virtual lane. The transmitting MLD 310 transmits the multiplexed packet to the transmitting PMA 320 through 10 electrical lanes.

The transmitting PMA 320 distributes data packets to the transmitting PMD 330 according to a round robin scheme. For example, if there are data packets in all 10 electrical lanes (EL0, EL1, ..., EL9), the first packet of EL0 is assigned to OL0, the first packet of EL1 is assigned to OL1, and the first of EL2. The packet is assigned to OL2, the first packet of EL3 is assigned to OL3, and the first packet of EL4 is assigned to OL0. After all the first packets of each electrical lane are allocated, the second packet is allocated in the same manner.

In the physical layer of the receiving module 200, an operation occurring in the physical layer of the transmitting module 100 is reversed.

4 illustrates a bit flow of a physical layer of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 4, the transmitting MLD 310 of the transmitting module 100 and the receiving MLD 360 of the receiving module 200 further include switches 311 and 361, respectively. Hereinafter, when each interface has a data packet to be transmitted, the state of the interface is called an active state, and when there is no data packet to be transmitted, the state of the interface is called an idle state.

The switch 311 attempts to reduce power consumption of the communication device by controlling the number of active optical interfaces and the number of active electrical interfaces according to the traffic load.

In general, since the optical interface is connected to a clock and data communication (CDR) or an external communication port, power consumption by the optical interface is much higher than power consumption by the electrical interface. Accordingly, the switch 311 may convert the arrangement of the virtual interfaces to reduce the number of the electrical interfaces in the active state on the premise of minimizing the number of the optical interfaces in the active state.

To this end, the switch 311 selects an arbitrary optical interface and converts the arrangement of the virtual interface so that data packets transferred through the virtual interface are preferentially assigned to any optical interface. If the number of data packets transmitted through the virtual interface exceeds the number of data packets that can be allocated to any optical interface, the arrangement of the virtual interface is converted so that the data packet is additionally allocated to another optical interface. In this case, the other optical interface may be an optical interface neighboring any optical interface. A neighboring optical interface means an interface that shares an electrical interface. For example, OL0 is assigned a data packet 0 delivered through EL0, and OL2 is assigned a data packet 1 delivered through EL0. Similarly, data packet 2 delivered through EL1 is assigned to OL1, and data packet 3 delivered through EL1 is assigned to OL3. In this way, since OL0 and OL2 share EL0, they become neighboring optical interfaces, and OL1 and OL3 share EL1, and thus become neighboring optical interfaces.

Accordingly, while minimizing the number of optical interfaces used, it is possible to minimize the number of electrical interfaces used.

5 is a diagram illustrating a specific operation of the switch 311, and FIG. 6 is a diagram illustrating a specific operation of the switch 361.

5 and 6, the switches 311 and 361 include a control unit (CU) and a switching unit (SU).

The control unit of the switch 311 in the transmission module 100 senses the traffic of the virtual interface before conversion. The control unit of the switch 311 adds the information of the virtual interface before conversion to the data packet, and the switch unit converts the arrangement of the virtual interface.

The control unit of the switch 361 in the receiving module 200 interprets the pre-conversion virtual interface information added to the data packet, and the switching unit rearranges the converted virtual interface arrangement to the original position.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating that the switch 311 adds information of a virtual interface before conversion to a data packet received from the transmission PCS 300 in the transmission module 100. FIG. 8 illustrates a switch (in the reception module 200). 361 detaches the information of the pre-converted virtual interface added to the data packet and transmits the information to the receiving PCS 370. Here, since the total number of virtual interfaces is 20, the information of the virtual interface before conversion may be represented by 5 bits.

Hereinafter, a specific method of converting the virtual interface arrangement in the switch 311 of the communication device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described.

Gbps의 트래픽이 발생한다고 할 수 있다.For convenience of description, the number of virtual interfaces in the active state at a moment is a, the number of electrical interfaces in the active state is b, and the number of optical interfaces in the active state is c. If the virtual interface is an interface of 5 Gbps, at any moment

Gbps traffic can be said to occur.

When a virtual interface is in an active state, the switch 311 converts the array of virtual interfaces to satisfy the equation (1).

Here, minimize {} operator means to minimize the expression in {}. cost _10G refers to the cost when the electrical interface is active, that is, power consumption, and cost _25G refers to the power consumption when the optical interface is active.

Due to the data packet distribution scheme between the transmitting PMA 320 and the transmitting PMD 330, it is impossible to simultaneously satisfy the two terms in parentheses of Equation (1). Therefore, while prioritizing minimizing the number of uses of the optical interface with high power consumption, it aims to minimize the number of uses of the electrical interface.

To this end, the relationship between b and a may be represented as in Equation 2.

연산자는 입력 x보다 큰 최소의 정수 값으로 정의한다. 예를 들어

는 3이다. minimum(x, y) 연산자는 입력 x와 y 중 작은 값을 취한다. 수학식 2에 따르면, 전기적인 인터페이스는 최대 minimum(a, 10), 최소

만큼 활성 상태로 둘 수 있음을 알 수 있다.here,

Operator is defined as the smallest integer value greater than the input x. E.g

Is 3. The minimum (x, y) operator takes the smaller of the inputs x and y. According to Equation 2, the electrical interface is maximum minimum (a, 10), minimum

It can be seen that as long as the active state.

및

의 연립방정식으로부터 구할 수 있다. 즉, b1=(2b-a)이고, b2=(a-b)임을 알 수 있다.On the other hand, the electrical interface of the active state may be divided into one of b ₁ electrically connected to the virtual interface of the active interface, and two of the active is associated with the virtual interface, b _two electrical interfaces. Where b ₁ and b ₂ are

And

It can be obtained from the system of equations That is, it can be seen that b1 = (2b-a) and b2 = (ab).

Given a and b, c can be expressed as in Equation 3.

는 활성 상태인 5개의 전기적인 인터페이스마다 적어도 1개의 광 인터페이스가 요구됨을 의미하고,

는 2개의 활성 상태의 가상 인터페이스에 연결된 5개의 전기적인 인터페이스마다 적어도 1개의 광 인터페이스가 추가로 요구됨을 의미한다.here,

Means at least one optical interface is required for every five electrical interfaces that are active,

Means at least one additional optical interface is required for every five electrical interfaces connected to the two active virtual interfaces.

For example, when ten virtual interfaces are active, b may be greater than or equal to 5 and less than or equal to 10 according to equation (2). Applying this to Equation 3, c may be greater than or equal to 2 and less than or equal to 4. Two optical interfaces may be left active (c = 2) to minimize power consumption. On the premise of this, the electrical interface may be arranged as b = b ₁ = 10 or b = b ₂ = 5, but it is preferable to arrange it as b = b ₂ = 5 in order to satisfy the condition of Equation (1).

9 is a flowchart illustrating a method of converting an array of virtual interfaces according to an embodiment of the present invention.

Here, the set of virtual interfaces transmitted to the kth (k = 1, 2, 3, 4) optical interface among the 20 virtual interfaces is defined as VLCk (k-th Virtual Lane Class). That is, referring to Figure 3 or 4,

VLC1 = {VL0, VL5, VL8, VL13, VL16},

VLC2 = {VL2, VL7, VL10, VL15, VL18},

VLC3 = {VL1, VL4, VL9, VL12, VL17},

VLC4 = {VL3, VL6, VL11, VL14, VL19}

.

If the virtual interface of one of the elements of VLCk (k = 1, 2, 3, 4) is in an active state, the corresponding VLCk is defined as an active state. The number of active VLCk is the number of optical interfaces in the active state. Another optical interface that shares an electrical interface with any optical interface is the relationship of a neighboring optical interface. That is, referring to FIG. 3 or 4, VLC1 and VLC3 are adjacent to each other, and VLC2 and VLC4 are adjacent to each other.

 Referring to FIG. 9, all virtual interfaces are set to be in an idle state (S900). When the traffic 311 is detected to enter the virtual interface (S902), the switch indexes the active virtual interface (S904). For example, an active virtual lane (AV) may be indexed as AV1, AV2, ..., AVa. Here, a is the number of active virtual interfaces.

The switch 311 selects any VLC among the set of virtual interfaces (S906), and determines whether an idle virtual interface exists among the elements of the selected VLC (S908). If there is an idle virtual interface, the indexed virtual interfaces AV1, AV2, ... AVa are converted into an idle virtual interface, and the converted virtual interface is changed to an active state (S910).

If there is no idle virtual interface among the elements of the selected VLC, it is determined whether an idle virtual interface exists in the neighboring VLC of the selected VLC (S912). If there is an idle virtual interface, the indexed virtual interface is converted into an idle virtual interface, and the converted virtual interface is changed to an active state (S910).

If there is no virtual interface in the neighbor VLC, another VLC is selected (S914), and step S910 is performed.

After performing the virtual interface array conversion for the traffic generated at any moment, the algorithm finishes after initializing the state of the virtual interface and the virtual interface set (S916).

Accordingly, the number of uses of the electrical interface is also minimized under the condition of minimizing the number of uses of the optical interface, thereby reducing power consumption of a communication device having multiple interfaces.

FIG. 10 is a graph illustrating an energy saving effect of converting a virtual interface arrangement according to an embodiment of the present invention. FIG. Here, it is assumed that the power consumption ratio of the electrical interface and the optical interface is 1: 100, and the power consumption ratio of the interface in the idle state is zero.

Referring to FIG. 10, it can be seen that there is a difference in the amount of power consumption between the prior art of arbitrarily distributing packets arriving independently at each virtual interface and the proposed invention of converting the arrangement of virtual interfaces according to an embodiment of the present invention. have.

In other words, the amount of power savings varies depending on the traffic volume, but the average power savings is about 30%. In particular, when the traffic amount is small, a power saving effect of about 50% can be obtained, and when the input traffic amount is 25Gbps, a power saving effect of about 67% can be obtained.

The embodiments of the present invention described above are not implemented only by the apparatus and method, but may be implemented through a program for realizing the function corresponding to the configuration of the embodiment of the present invention or a recording medium on which the program is recorded.

While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to exemplary embodiments thereof, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the disclosed exemplary embodiments, It belongs to the scope of right.

Claims (16)

In the data packet transmission method of a communication device having multiple interfaces,
Receiving a data packet through a plurality of virtual interfaces,
Converting an arrangement of the plurality of virtual interfaces so that the number of optical interfaces for transmitting the data packet is minimized;
Assigning the data packet to the optical interface, and
Transmitting the data packet over the optical interface
Data packet transmission method comprising a. The method of claim 1,
Wherein the converting comprises:
Selecting any optical interface, and
Converting the arrangement of the plurality of virtual interfaces such that the data packet is preferentially assigned to the arbitrary optical interface
Data packet transmission method comprising a. The method of claim 2,
Wherein the converting comprises:
Determining whether the number of the plurality of virtual interfaces exceeds the number of data packets that can be assigned to the any optical interface, and
If exceeded, converting the arrangement of the plurality of virtual interfaces to further allocate the data packet to another optical interface. The method of claim 3,
And the other optical interface is an optical interface sharing an electrical interface with the arbitrary optical interface. The method of claim 1,
The converting step includes adding information of a virtual interface before conversion to the data packet. In a communication device having multiple interfaces,
An interface distribution unit for receiving a data packet through a plurality of virtual interfaces and multiplexing the data packet; and
Transmitter that receives the multiplexed data packet through at least one electrical interface, allocates the received data packet to at least one optical interface and transmits through the at least one optical interface
Including,
And the interface distribution unit converts the arrangement of the plurality of virtual interfaces so that the number of optical interfaces for transmitting the data packet is minimized. The method according to claim 6,
The interface distribution unit
Selecting an arbitrary optical interface and converting the arrangement of the plurality of virtual interfaces such that the data packet is preferentially assigned to the arbitrary optical interface. The method of claim 7, wherein
The interface distribution unit
And when the number of the plurality of virtual interfaces exceeds the number of virtual interfaces that can be assigned to the arbitrary optical interface, converting the arrangement of the plurality of virtual interfaces so that the virtual interface is additionally allocated to another optical interface. . 9. The method of claim 8,
And the other optical interface is an interface that shares the electrical interface with the arbitrary optical interface. The method according to claim 6,
And the interface distribution unit adds information of the virtual interface before conversion to the data packet. The method according to claim 6,
The interface distribution unit
A control unit for detecting a data packet input through the virtual interface and adding information of the virtual interface before conversion to the data packet; and
A switching unit for converting an arrangement of the plurality of virtual interfaces
. In the interface allocation method of a communication device having multiple interfaces,
Detecting data packets flowing through the plurality of virtual interfaces;
Indexing the virtual interface into which the data packet is introduced;
Selecting any set of virtual interfaces—a set of virtual interfaces carried over the same optical interface, and
Converting an indexed virtual interface into an idle virtual interface in the set of virtual interfaces.
Interface assignment method comprising a. The method of claim 12,
The converting step
Determining whether there is an idle virtual interface in the set of virtual interfaces; and
If there is an idle virtual interface, converting the indexed virtual interface to an idle virtual interface, and converting the converted virtual interface to an active state
Interface assignment method comprising a. The method of claim 13,
The converting step
Adding information of a virtual interface before conversion to the data packet
Interface assignment method further comprising. The method of claim 13,
If there is no idle virtual interface, selecting another set of virtual interfaces, and
Converting an indexed virtual interface into an idle virtual interface in the other set of virtual interfaces
Interface assignment method further comprising. 16. The method of claim 15,
And said another set of virtual interfaces shares an electrical interface carrying said multiplexed data packets with said set of virtual interfaces.

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