CN114629841A

CN114629841A - Communication method, device and system

Info

Publication number: CN114629841A
Application number: CN202011359748.2A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 刘云; 汪大勇
Original assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Current assignee: Huawei Technologies Co Ltd
Priority date: 2020-11-27
Filing date: 2020-11-27
Publication date: 2022-06-14
Anticipated expiration: 2040-11-27
Also published as: CN114629841B; WO2022111325A1

Abstract

The application discloses a communication method, a communication device and a communication system, belongs to the field of communication, is used for transmitting service messages and is applied to a network element at a sending end. The method comprises the following steps: for each physical link in a plurality of physical links bound by a physical link aggregation PLA, acquiring speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link, wherein the speed limit point information comprises bandwidth; and limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the bandwidths of the speed limiting points on the physical link. The method and the device can reduce cost and simplify the bandwidth acquisition process.

Description

Communication method, device and system

Technical Field

The present application relates to the field of communications, and in particular, to a communication method, apparatus, and system.

Background

A Physical Link Aggregation (PLA) technique, also called trunk technique (trunk) or bundling technique (bundling), refers to a technique for bundling multiple Physical links to provide a logically large pipe for service packet transmission.

The communication system based on the PLA technology comprises an aggregation link, and a sending end Network Element (NE) and a receiving end Network Element which are connected through the aggregation link. The aggregated link includes one or more member links configured on each of a plurality of physical links. In the communication system, a sending end network element is used for slicing a service message to obtain a plurality of sliced messages, and then distributing the plurality of sliced messages to a plurality of member links in an aggregation link. The receiving terminal network element is used for receiving and sequencing a plurality of slice messages, and then recombining the sequenced slice messages to obtain a service message. If any slice message is discarded in the transmission process, the slice message recombination fails, and random packet loss occurs.

In the related art, to avoid the occurrence of the random packet loss phenomenon during the transmission process, for each member link, a network element at a sending end sets a bandwidth occupied by a slice packet passing through the member link to be less than or equal to the bandwidth of the member link through one time of speed limiting (also called traffic shaping). The bandwidth of the member link is the bandwidth set by the staff for speed limiting. The staff needs to calculate the speed limit bandwidth of each speed limit point on the member link, and determine the minimum value in the speed limit bandwidth of each speed limit point as the bandwidth of the member link. The speed limit bandwidth of each speed limit point needs to be determined comprehensively based on the bandwidth and overhead bit of each speed limit point, the minimum length of the slice message passing through the speed limit point, the bandwidth of the adjacent speed limit points and the like, and the labor cost is high. The acquisition process of the bandwidth for limiting the speed is complex, and the acquisition efficiency is low.

Disclosure of Invention

The embodiment of the application provides a communication method, a communication device and a communication system, and the speed limiting efficiency is improved.

In a first aspect, a communication method is provided, where the method is applied to a sending-end network element, and the method includes: for each physical link in a plurality of physical links bound by PLA, a sending end network element obtains the speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link. Wherein the speed limit point information includes a bandwidth. And the network element of the sending end limits the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the bandwidths of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link.

And the network element at the sending end limits the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link through the acquired bandwidth of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link. Therefore, before the slice message passes through the physical link, the speed limit is already carried out at the network element of the sending end according to the bandwidth of each speed limit point. Therefore, the slice messages after speed limiting already meet the bandwidth requirements of each speed limiting point when being actually transmitted on the physical link. On the basis, the network element of the sending end directly obtains the bandwidth of the speed limit point, and the speed limit is carried out based on the obtained bandwidth. The speed-limiting bandwidth of each speed-limiting point is not required to be manually determined, the labor cost is reduced, the acquisition process of the speed-limiting bandwidth is simplified, and the acquisition efficiency of the speed-limiting bandwidth is improved.

Optionally, the speed limit point information further includes: the overhead bit number of the speed limit point. Illustratively, the process of limiting the speed of the slice packet to be transmitted on the physical link based on the bandwidths of the plurality of speed-limiting points on the physical link includes: for each speed limit point of the plurality of speed limit points, taking the difference between the bandwidth of the speed limit point and the bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number as a threshold bandwidth; and controlling the passing speed of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point in unit time to be smaller than the threshold bandwidth of the speed limit point. The bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number is the product of the overhead bit number and a preset message transmission rate.

In an optional manner, the sending-end network element may further update the speed limit point information of at least one of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link, and limit the speed of the slice packet to be transmitted on the physical link based on the updated bandwidths of the plurality of speed limit points. Specifically, there are two update modes. In the first mode, when the information of any speed limit point in the plurality of speed limit points changes, the information of the speed limit point of any speed limit point is obtained; and when the information of any one speed limit point in the plurality of speed limit points changes, the network element of the sending end acquires the information of the speed limit point. Therefore, the sending terminal network element can acquire the changed speed limit point information in real time, and the speed limit is timely and accurate. In the second mode, the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points is periodically acquired.

The sending terminal network element can obtain the speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link in a plurality of modes. In a first implementation manner, a process of acquiring, by a sending-end network element, speed limit point information of multiple speed limit points on the physical link includes: and the network element at the sending end receives monitoring information sent by monitoring equipment, wherein the monitoring equipment corresponds to at least one physical link in the plurality of physical links. The monitoring information includes speed limit point information of the speed limit point monitored by the monitoring equipment on the corresponding physical link.

Optionally, each of the plurality of physical links includes at least one hardware device, and the hardware device where the speed limiting point is located in the at least one hardware device is the monitoring device. The speed limit points monitored by any monitoring equipment on the corresponding physical link comprise the speed limit points positioned on any monitoring equipment and/or the speed limit points connected with any monitoring equipment; the process of receiving monitoring information sent by a monitoring device includes: and receiving monitoring information sent by the monitoring equipment on each physical link.

In a second implementation manner, the process of acquiring, by a sending-end network element, speed limit point information of multiple speed limit points on the physical link includes: and receiving a bandwidth setting instruction. The bandwidth setting instruction comprises speed limit point information of one or more speed limit points in the plurality of physical links.

In an alternative example, the sending-end network element has or is connected with an input device through which a user inputs a bandwidth setting instruction. Correspondingly, the network element at the sending end receives the bandwidth setting instruction. The bandwidth setting instruction includes speed limit point information of one or more speed limit points that can be acquired by a user. The speed limit point information is generally the speed limit point information of the speed limit point with fixed bandwidth. Therefore, the user only needs to set the speed limit point information once, and the user operation is reduced.

The foregoing first implementation and second implementation may be performed in combination. For example, the speed limit point information acquired by the sending-end network element includes speed limit point information reported by the monitoring device and speed limit point information set by the bandwidth setting instruction.

The speed limit point information acquired by the receiving end network element may have a duplicate situation. For such a situation, after receiving the speed limit point information, the sending-end network element may perform deduplication processing on the received speed limit point information to obtain the speed limit point information after deduplication processing. For example, for the same speed limit point, if multiple pieces of speed limit point information are received, the latest speed limit point information (that is, the speed limit point information with the set time or the sending time closest to the current time) in the multiple pieces of speed limit point information is obtained as the speed limit point information after the duplication is removed, so that the timeliness and the effectiveness of the speed limit point information can be ensured.

The risk of missing sending of the speed limit point information can be reduced through the redundant reporting of the speed limit point information, and the reliability of the speed limit point information received by the sending terminal network element is improved.

In the embodiment of the present application, the communication system further supports a bandwidth prediction function. Flexible speed limiting can be achieved by predicting the change of the bandwidth in advance. The bandwidth prediction function comprises the steps of: and receiving bandwidth prediction information sent by the prediction device. The prediction device corresponds to at least one of the plurality of physical links. The bandwidth prediction information includes a predicted bandwidth. The predicted bandwidth is the bandwidth after the change of a certain speed limit point which is monitored by the prediction equipment on the corresponding physical link and meets the bandwidth change condition. And limiting the speed of the slice message to pass through the certain speed limiting point in the slice messages to be transmitted on the physical link based on the predicted bandwidth.

It should be noted that the prediction device may repeatedly send the bandwidth prediction information, so as to ensure that the network element at the sending end can receive the bandwidth prediction information, and improve the reliability of reporting the bandwidth prediction information.

In the embodiment of the application, when the sending-end network element supports the bandwidth prediction function, the prediction device predicts the bandwidth to be effective in advance and informs the sending-end network element. The network element at the sending end responds to adjust the bandwidth in the network element in advance, thereby realizing lossless bandwidth switching. Especially for some service messages with higher priority, the loss of slice messages caused by speed limit failure is effectively prevented, and thus the phenomenon of random packet loss is avoided.

Optionally, the process of limiting the speed of the slice packet to be transmitted on the physical link based on the speed limit point information of the multiple speed limit points on the physical link includes: and acquiring hitching relation information, wherein the hitching relation information is used for describing the connection relation of each speed limit point on the physical link. The hitching relation information is established based on the identification of each speed limit point on the physical link and the type of the speed limit point of each speed limit point. And performing multi-stage speed limitation on the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link according to the connection relation of each speed limiting point in the hooking relation information based on the bandwidths of the speed limiting points on the physical link.

Illustratively, the process of performing multi-stage speed limiting on the slice packet to be transmitted on the physical link according to the connection relationship of each speed limiting point in the hitching relationship information based on the bandwidths of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link includes: and regarding each speed limit point recorded in the hitching relation information, taking the difference between the bandwidth of the speed limit point and the bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number as the threshold bandwidth. And controlling the passing speed of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point in unit time to be smaller than the threshold bandwidth of the speed limit point.

The physical link comprises m member links, and m is a positive integer. The speed limit point information further includes: the identification of the speed limit point and the type of the speed limit point. The speed limit point type comprises a main road speed limit point or a branch road speed limit point. The main road speed limit point is a speed limit point which is passed by the m member links together, and the branch road speed limit point is a speed limit point which is passed by the m member links respectively.

Assuming that the hitching relationship information of the physical link includes: m first branches corresponding to the m member links (e.g., m first branches correspond one-to-one to m member links), and one second branch connected to the m first branches; each first branch is used to record the identifier of the speed-limiting point of which the speed-limiting point type on the corresponding member link is the branch speed-limiting point, and the second branch is used to record the identifier of the speed-limiting point of which the speed-limiting point type on the physical link is the main road speed-limiting point.

In an alternative implementation manner, in the hitching relation information of the physical link, for each branch of the first branch and the second branch, the identification of the speed limiting point of the branch record may be randomly arranged.

In another alternative, for each of the first branch and the second branch, the identifications of the speed limit points on the branch may be arranged according to a preset rule. For example, the identification of the speed limit point on the branch satisfies at least one of the following conditions:

in the first case, when the bandwidths of the two speed-limiting points are the same and the number of overhead bits is different, the identifiers of the two speed-limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence of the corresponding overhead bits from large to small. Therefore, when speed limiting is carried out, the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of the previous speed limiting point are preferentially adopted for speed limiting, so that the speed limiting requirement of the next speed limiting point is met when the sliced message after speed limiting reaches the next speed limiting point, and the passing time delay of the sliced message at the next speed limiting point is reduced.

In the second case, when the overhead bit numbers of two speed-limiting points are the same and the bandwidths are different, the identifiers of the two speed-limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence of the corresponding bandwidths from small to large. Therefore, when speed limiting is carried out, the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of the previous speed limiting point are preferentially adopted for speed limiting, so that the speed limiting requirement of the next speed limiting point is met when the sliced message after speed limiting reaches the next speed limiting point, and the passing time delay of the sliced message at the next speed limiting point is reduced.

In the embodiment of the application, each first branch usually records the identifications of the speed limit points of which all the speed limit point types on the corresponding member links are branch speed limit points; the second branch usually records the identifications of the speed limit points of which all the types of the speed limit points on the physical link are main road speed limit points. Therefore, the hooking relation information of the physical link is ensured to cover the identifications of all the speed limit points on the physical link, and the omission of the speed limit points is avoided to influence the speed limit result.

In practical implementation, for each of the first branch and the second branch, the identifications of the speed limit points recorded by the branch can be integrated, and the identification of one of the speed limit points needing to be integrated is reserved. In this way, the number of the identifiers of the speed limit points recorded by each first branch is less than or equal to the total number of the identifiers of the speed limit points of which the types of the speed limit points on the corresponding member links are branch speed limit points; the number of the identifications of the speed limit points recorded by the second branch is less than or equal to the total number of the identifications of the speed limit points of which the types of the speed limit points on the physical link are main road speed limit points.

For example, for each of the first branch and the second branch, when the number of overhead bits of the two speed limit points is the same and the bandwidths are different, the sending-end network element may delete the identifier of the speed limit point with the larger bandwidth in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain the updated branch. For another example, for each of the first branch and the second branch, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed-limiting points are different and the bandwidths are the same, the sending-end network element may delete the identifier of the speed-limiting point with the smaller overhead bit number in the two speed-limiting points recorded in the branch to obtain the updated branch. For another example, for each of the first branch and the second branch, when the number of overhead bits of the two speed-limiting points is the same and the bandwidth is the same, the sending-end network element may delete the identifier of one of the two speed-limiting points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch.

The speed limiting based on the updated branch can achieve the same effect of speed limiting based on the branch before updating, but the number of the marks of the speed limiting points recorded by the updated branch is less, and the complexity is lower.

The sending-end network element of the embodiment of the application also supports a flow control back pressure mode. The flow control back pressure refers to the flow control of the slice message realized in a feedback mode. In an embodiment of the present application, the process of fluidic back pressure includes: and for each speed limit point recorded by the hitching relation information, when the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point is larger than the bandwidth of the speed limit point. And reducing the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slicing message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point by discarding the service message, wherein the service message is used for slicing to obtain the slicing message.

In a second aspect, a communication device is provided. The communication device includes: a processing chip, the processing chip comprising: a processing circuit and a communication interface, the processing circuit being configured to perform the communication method of any of the first aspect; the communication interface is used for the processing circuit to communicate with other devices. The processing circuit may be a processing chip or a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA).

In a third aspect, a communications apparatus is provided. The communication device comprises at least one module, which may be configured to implement the communication method provided by the first aspect or various possible implementations of the first aspect.

In a fourth aspect, the present application provides a communication system. The communication system comprises a sending end network element, a receiving end network element and a plurality of physical links bound by a physical link aggregation PLA, wherein the sending end network element comprises the communication device in the second aspect or the third aspect.

In a fifth aspect, the present application provides a computer device comprising a processor and a memory. The memory stores computer instructions; the processor executes the computer instructions stored by the memory to cause the computer device to perform the methods provided by the first aspect or the various possible implementations of the first aspect.

In a sixth aspect, the present application provides a computer-readable storage medium having stored therein computer instructions for instructing a computer device to execute the method of the first aspect or various possible implementations thereof.

In a seventh aspect, the present application provides a computer program product comprising computer instructions stored in a computer readable storage medium. The processor of the computer device may read the computer instructions from the computer-readable storage medium, and the processor executes the computer instructions to cause the computer device to perform the method provided by the various possible implementations of the first aspect described above.

In an eighth aspect, a chip is provided. The chip may comprise programmable logic circuitry for implementing the communication method as in any one of the first aspects when the chip is in operation.

To sum up, in this embodiment of the present application, a sending-end network element limits a speed of a slice packet to be transmitted on a physical link according to an acquired bandwidth of a plurality of speed-limiting points on the physical link. Therefore, before the slice message passes through the physical link, the speed limit is already carried out at the network element of the sending end according to the bandwidth of each speed limit point. Therefore, the slice messages after speed limiting already meet the bandwidth requirements of each speed limiting point when being actually transmitted on the physical link. On the basis, the sending end network element directly obtains the bandwidth of the speed limit point and limits the speed based on the obtained bandwidth. The speed-limiting bandwidth of each speed-limiting point does not need to be manually determined, the labor cost is reduced, the acquisition process of the speed-limiting bandwidth is simplified, and the acquisition efficiency of the speed-limiting bandwidth is improved.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication system according to a communication method provided in the present application;

fig. 2 is a schematic communication principle diagram of a communication system according to a communication method provided in the present application;

fig. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of an exemplary hitching relationship provided by an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 5 is a diagram illustrating hitching relationship information for the physical link shown in FIG. 1;

fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a connection network of the speed limiter corresponding to hitching relation information of the physical link shown in fig. 5;

fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device according to an embodiment of the present application;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of another communication device according to an embodiment of the present application.

Detailed Description

In order to make the principle and technical solution of the present application clearer, embodiments of the present application will be described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

Fig. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication system according to a communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 1, the communication system includes: a sending end network element 101, a receiving end network element 102, and an aggregated link. The aggregated link includes a plurality of physical links bundled. Fig. 1 assumes that the aggregated link includes 2 physical links, physical link 1031 and physical link 1032, respectively. At the sending-end network element, one aggregated link corresponds to one logical interface, which is also referred to as a link aggregation interface. The link corresponding to each physical interface (also called physical port or hardware interface) constituting the link aggregation interface is called a physical link. The physical link may refer to a direct path connecting two network elements (i.e., there is no intermediate network element between the two network elements) or an indirect path (i.e., there is an intermediate network element between the two network elements). The physical link is typically a physical link. Thus, a physical link between the sending-end network element 101 and the receiving-end network element 102 is a direct or indirect path from a physical interface on the sending-end network element 101 to a physical interface on the receiving-end network element 102. The sending-end network element 101 is configured to slice the service packet to obtain a plurality of sliced packets. The aggregation link is used for transmitting the plurality of slice messages. The receiving-end network element 102 is configured to receive and sequence a plurality of slice messages, and then recombine the sequenced slice messages to obtain a service message. The network element may illustratively be a router, a switch, or other type of network element.

In an embodiment of the present application, the aggregated link comprises one or more types of physical links. For example, the aggregated link includes: an ethernet link, a microwave link, an Optical Transport Network (OTN) link, and at least one type of physical link of an improved OTN link (also referred to as an enhanced OTN link or an evolved OTN link). The physical links in the aggregated link may be deployed by the same operator or by different operators.

Take the example that the aggregated link comprises a microwave link. PLA technologies using microwave links can be classified into several types, such as a general PLA (also called a conventional PLA) technology, an Enhanced Physical Link Aggregation (EPLA) technology, and a Super Dual Band (SDB) technology. Wherein, in the common PLA technology, the aggregation link includes two microwave links. In the enhanced PLA technology, the aggregated link includes at least three microwave links; in SDB technology, the aggregated link includes two different frequency band microwave links. For example, microwave links including conventional frequency BANDs and microwave links of E-BAND (E-BAND). The frequency of the conventional BAND is 7-38 gigahertz (GHz), and the frequency of the E-BAND is 71-86 GHz.

Fig. 2 is a schematic communication principle diagram of a communication system according to a communication method provided in an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 2, each physical link is configured with one or more member links (which may also be regarded as dividing the physical link into one or more member links), and one aggregated link includes multiple member links, and the number of member links of the aggregated link is greater than or equal to the number of physical links. The member links belonging to the same physical link jointly form a physical interface of the link aggregation interface, different member links belonging to the same physical link respectively use different communication interfaces, and at least one member link belonging to the same physical link corresponds to at least one communication interface one to one. The communication interface may be an air interface or a wired interface, which may be an optical interface or an electrical interface. When one member link uses an air interface for communication, the member link comprises a wireless link connected with the air interface; when one member link communicates using a wired port, the member link includes a communication cable to which the wired port is connected.

In the communication system shown in fig. 2, the sending-end network element is configured to perform a message slicing process on a service message to obtain a plurality of sliced messages, and then perform a message distribution process on the plurality of sliced messages to distribute the plurality of sliced messages to a plurality of member links in an aggregation link; the receiving end network element is used for executing a slice collecting process so as to collect a plurality of slice messages transmitted on the member link; then, a slice caching process is executed on the collected slice messages so as to sort the slice messages; and then executing a message recombination process to recombine the sequenced slice messages to obtain service messages.

For example, assume that the aggregated link in FIG. 2 includes n member links, i.e., member link 1 to member link n, where n ≧ 2. After executing a message slicing process and a message distribution process on a service message, a sending-end network element 101 distributes the sliced messages 1, 3, 7 and 8 to a member link 1, and distributes the sliced messages 2, 4, 5 and 6 to a member link n; the receiving-end network element 102 obtains a service message composed of slice messages 1-8 by executing a slice collection flow, a slice caching flow and a message reassembly flow.

If any slice message is discarded in the transmission process, the slice message recombination of the receiving terminal network element fails, and random packet loss between the transmitting terminal network element and the receiving terminal network element occurs. Therefore, it is necessary to ensure that each speed limit point on the member link can allow the slice message to pass through. The speed limit point is relative to the slice message sent by the sending end network element, and is a point for generating the speed limit function on the slice message sent by the sending end network element. For example, the speed limit point may be a backplane, a board, or a physical interface on the device. The physical interface may be a connector, a fiber optic splice, a single board plug, an ethernet interface, or the like. The single board may include an intermediate frequency board. The speed limit point may also be a communication interface, such as an air port or a wired port. When a slice message sent by a sending-end network element passes through a speed limit point, the speed limit point usually encapsulates extra overhead bits (or overhead bytes) on the slice message. The speed limit points can be of two types, namely a speed limit point with variable bandwidth and a speed limit point with fixed bandwidth. The bandwidth of the speed limit point with variable bandwidth is easily influenced by external environment, such as weather. Illustratively, the rate-limiting point is an air interface (e.g., microwave air interface). The bandwidth of the fixed-bandwidth speed limit point is not influenced by the external environment, and in the communication system, the bandwidth of the fixed-bandwidth speed limit point is not changed after the aggregated link is deployed. For example, the bandwidth of a physical port of an ethernet network is 1Gpbs (gigabits per second).

For the reader's further understanding of the speed limit point and the member links in the aggregated link, fig. 1 is taken as an example for the following description. For physical link 1031, the slice message generated by sending end network element 101 sequentially passes through backplane 1, board 2 of sending end network element 101 and backplane 2 of receiving end network element 102, and is thus transmitted to receiving end network element 102. The backplane 1 is integrated on the sending-end network element 101, and may be integrated with the sending-end network element 101. The backplane 2 is integrated on the receiving-end network element 102, and may be integrated with the receiving-end network element 102. Backplane 1 has connector a, and board 1 has connector B for connecting to the backplane, and air interfaces C1 and C2 for communicating with receiving-side network elements 102. The connector a, the connector B, the air interface C1, and the air interface C2 respectively generate a speed-limiting effect on the slice message sent by the sending-end network element 101. The rate limit point of physical link 1031 includes: connector a, connector B, air interface C1, and air interface C2. Physical link 1031 includes two member links, a member link over connector a, connector B, and air interface C1, and a member link over connector a, connector B, and air interface C2. For physical link 1032, the slice message generated by the sending-end network element is transmitted to the receiving-end network element 102 through the sending-end network element 101, the slave device 1, and the slave device 2 in sequence. The transmitting-end network element 101 has an ethernet interface D, and the slave device 1 has an ethernet interface E for connecting with the transmitting-end network element 101 and an air interface F for communicating with the receiving-end network element 102. The ethernet interface D, the ethernet interface E, and the air interface F respectively generate a speed-limiting effect on the slice message sent by the sending-end network element 101. The rate limit points for physical link 1032 include: ethernet interface D, ethernet interface E, and air interface F, and physical link 1032 includes a member link, that is, a member link passing through ethernet interface D, ethernet interface E, and air interface F.

It should be noted that, the speed-limiting effects of two speed-limiting points with the same bandwidth and the same overhead bit number on the same member link are the same (that is, the speed-limiting effect of the slice packet after passing through the two speed-limiting points is the same as the speed-limiting effect of the slice packet after passing through any one of the two speed-limiting points), and the two speed-limiting points can be regarded as the same speed-limiting point. For example, after the connector a and the connector B are connected (e.g., plugged), the two connectors have the same speed-limiting effect on the sliced message sent by the sending-end network element 101 (i.e., the speed-limiting effect of the sliced message after passing through the two connectors is the same as the speed-limiting effect of the sliced message after passing through any one of the two connectors). Therefore, the two can be regarded as the same connector, and can be regarded as the same speed limiting point on the physical link. Similarly, the ethernet interface D and the ethernet interface E are connected by an ethernet port connection line, and because the ethernet port connection line does not usually have a speed limit function, the speed limit functions of the two ethernet interfaces on the sliced packet sent by the sending-end network element 101 are the same (that is, the speed limit effect of the sliced packet after passing through the ethernet interface D, the ethernet port connection line and the ethernet interface E is the same as the speed limit effect of the sliced packet after passing through any one of the ethernet interface D and the ethernet interface E). Thus, the two ethernet interfaces can be regarded as the same ethernet interface, and can be regarded as the same speed limiting point on the physical link. The speed limit points with the same speed limit function (for example, adjacent speed limit points with the same speed limit function) on the physical link are used as one speed limit point for processing, so that the complexity of the acquired physical link can be reduced, and the management efficiency of the physical link is improved.

In fig. 1, backplane 2 has a connector, board 2 has a connector and an air interface, receiving-end network element 102 has an ethernet interface, and slave device 2 has an ethernet interface and an air interface. Fig. 1 assumes that these physical interfaces and communication interfaces do not have a speed-limiting effect on the slice message sent by the sending-end network element, that is, for the slice message, the slice message is not a speed-limiting point. These physical and communication interfaces are not shown in fig. 1. However, in actual implementation, no matter the side where the sending end network element is located or the side where the receiving end network element is located may have a speed limit point on the physical link, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

In a communication system, the bandwidth of a slice message allowed to pass through by each speed limit point is influenced by the following factors:

1. the overhead bit number added by the speed limit point is as follows: in the transmission process of each slice message, each speed limit point adds some overhead bits to the slice message, and the number of the added overhead bits is different for different speed limit points. The number of the added overhead bits is the same at the same speed limit point.

2. Bandwidth of the speed limit point.

3. Length of slice message: the length of the slice packet may be different for different slice scenarios, for example, the length of the slice packet may be 64 bytes or 1518 bytes, etc. For messages with different lengths, as the speed limit point needs to add overhead bits to the slice message, payloads (payload) carried in the messages with different lengths passing through the same speed limit point in unit time length are different. The payload refers to data actually carried by the packet. The payload of the slice message passing through a speed limit point in unit time is called as the maximum payload bandwidth, and the maximum payload bandwidth is positively correlated with the length of the slice message. That is, the longer the length of the slice packet is, the larger the maximum payload bandwidth is, and the higher the benefit of slice packet transmission is.

In the related art, the above three factors are considered, and in order to ensure that the slice messages with different lengths can all pass through the speed limit point, the worst transmission situation is usually considered to determine the bandwidth of the member link for speed limit. The bandwidth of the member link is determined in the following manner in the related art: for each member link, the staff determines the speed-limiting bandwidth of each speed-limiting point based on the bandwidth and overhead bit of each speed-limiting point on the member link, the minimum length of a slice message passing through the speed-limiting point, the bandwidth of an adjacent speed-limiting point and the like; and determining the minimum value in the speed limiting bandwidths of the speed limiting points as the bandwidth of the member link. The process of acquiring the speed limit bandwidth of each speed limit point is complex, and the labor cost is high. Therefore, the acquisition process of the bandwidth for limiting the speed is complex, and the acquisition efficiency is low.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application. The communication method is applied to the communication system shown in fig. 1 or fig. 2. The method can reduce labor cost, simplify the acquisition process of the bandwidth for speed reduction and improve the acquisition efficiency of the bandwidth for speed reduction. In the communication method provided in the embodiment of the present application, for each of multiple physical links (i.e., aggregation links) bundled by PLAs, the processing actions executed by the network element at the sending end are the same. In the following, one physical link is taken as an example, and the processing operation for the other physical link refers to the processing operation for the one physical link. As shown in fig. 3, the method includes the following steps.

S301, the sending end network element obtains the speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link, wherein the speed limit point information comprises bandwidth (namely actual bandwidth).

In this embodiment of the present application, a sending-end network element may obtain speed limit point information of multiple speed limit points on a physical link in multiple ways. In a first implementation manner, a sending-end network element receives speed limit point information reported by a monitoring device. The monitoring device corresponds to at least one physical link in the aggregation link, and is used for monitoring the speed limit point information of the speed limit point on the corresponding physical link. The process of the sending end network element receiving the speed limit point information reported by the monitoring device includes: the monitoring equipment sends monitoring information to a sending terminal network element, wherein the monitoring information comprises speed limit point information of a speed limit point monitored by the monitoring equipment on a corresponding physical link; correspondingly, the sending end device receives the monitoring information sent by the monitoring device. Optionally, the monitoring information further includes an information identifier. The information identifier is used for uniquely identifying monitoring information, and is used for distinguishing other control information transmitted in the network element at the sending end. The monitoring information may further include a priority, and the monitoring device may determine the order of sending the monitoring information according to the priority of the monitoring information. Illustratively, the priority of the monitoring information is the highest priority of the communication system.

In an optional example, each physical link in the aggregated link includes at least one hardware device, where the at least one hardware device includes the foregoing monitoring device, and the physical link corresponding to the monitoring device is the physical link where the monitoring device is located. Monitoring equipment on each physical link sends monitoring information to a sending end network element; correspondingly, the network element at the sending end receives the monitoring information sent by the monitoring equipment on each physical link. Illustratively, the hardware device is a device capable of sending information to a sending-end network element, and may be a backplane, a single board, a slave device, or other structures. The examples of the present application are described by taking the following two cases as examples:

in the first case, the hardware device where the speed limit point in the at least one hardware device is located is a monitoring device, and the speed limit point monitored by any monitoring device on the corresponding physical link includes the speed limit point located on any monitoring device and/or the speed limit point connected with any monitoring device.

Taking fig. 1 as an example, the backplane 1 and the board 1 may both be monitoring devices on the physical link 1031, and the slave device 1 is a monitoring device on the physical link 1032. When the speed limit point monitored by any monitoring device on the corresponding physical link includes a speed limit point located on any monitoring device, the monitoring information sent by the back panel 1 includes: speed limit point information of the speed limit point A; the monitoring information sent by the board 1 includes: speed limit point information of speed limit point B, C1 and C2; the monitoring information transmitted from the device 1 includes: speed limit point information of the speed limit points E and F. When the speed limit point monitored by any monitoring device on the corresponding physical link includes a speed limit point connected with any monitoring device, the monitoring information sent by the backplane 1 may include: speed limit point information of speed limit point B, C1 and C2; the monitoring information sent by the board 1 includes: speed limit point information of the speed limit point A; the monitoring information transmitted from the device 1 includes: speed limit point information of the speed limit point D. When the speed limit points monitored by any monitoring device on the corresponding physical link include the speed limit point located on any monitoring device and the speed limit point connected with any monitoring device, the monitoring information sent by the back panel 1 includes: speed limit point information of speed limit point A, B, C1 and C2; the monitoring information sent by the board 1 includes: speed limit point information of speed limit point A, B, C1 and C2; the monitoring information transmitted from the device 1 includes: speed limit point D, E and F.

In a second case, a designated hardware device of the at least one hardware device is a monitoring device, and the speed limit points monitored by the monitoring device on the corresponding physical link include one or more speed limit points on the corresponding physical link, for example, all the speed limit points on the physical link.

Taking fig. 1 as an example, assume that the designated hardware device in the backplane 1, the board 2, and the backplane 2 is the board 1; if the designated hardware device in slave device 1 and slave device 2 is slave device 1, board 1 is a monitoring device on physical link 1031, and slave device 1 is a monitoring device on physical link 1032. The monitoring information sent by the board 1 includes: speed limit point information of the speed limit point A, B, C1 and C2; the monitoring information transmitted from the device 1 includes: speed limit point D, E and F.

It should be noted that one physical link includes a sending end link, where the sending end link is a link from a first speed limit point (e.g., a physical interface) to a last speed limit point (e.g., an air interface) determined in a direction away from a sending end network element, and since the sending end link is closer to the sending end network element and a hardware device outside the sending end link is farther from the sending end network element, a specified hardware device (i.e., a monitoring device) may be set on the sending end link. When the designated hardware equipment is the hardware equipment on the link of the sending end, the monitoring information can be reported quickly, and the transmission delay of the monitoring information is reduced.

In the first optional example, the monitoring device is a structure with a communication function, and is capable of sending information to the sending-end network element. Because the traditional backboard does not have a communication function, if the backboard is required to be configured as monitoring equipment, the backboard is an intelligent backboard with a communication function.

In another optional example, the monitoring device is located outside the aggregation link and configured to monitor the speed limit points on one or more physical links in the aggregation link, and the monitoring device collects speed limit point information of each speed limit point from the monitored hardware device on the physical link and sends the collected speed limit point information to the sending-end device.

In a second implementation manner, the sending-end network element obtains the speed limit point information in a manual configuration manner. The process of the sending end network element receiving the speed limit point information reported by the monitoring device includes: and receiving a bandwidth setting instruction, wherein the bandwidth setting instruction comprises speed limit point information of one or more speed limit points in a plurality of physical links of the aggregation link.

In an optional example, the sending-end network element has or is connected to an input device, and a user inputs a bandwidth setting instruction through the input device, and accordingly, the sending-end network element receives the bandwidth setting instruction. The bandwidth setting instruction includes speed limit point information of one or more speed limit points that can be acquired by a user. The speed limit point information is generally the speed limit point information of the speed limit point with fixed bandwidth. Therefore, the user generally only needs to set the speed limit point information once, and the user operation is reduced.

It should be noted that the first rate-limiting point on the physical link is usually a physical interface of the sending-end network element, such as the connector a of the backplane 1 on the sending-end network element shown in fig. 1, and the ethernet interface D of the sending-end network element. Therefore, in actual implementation, besides receiving the speed limit point information of the first speed limit point reported by the monitoring device or receiving the manually configured speed limit point information of the first speed limit point, the sending-end network element may also directly obtain the speed limit point information of its own physical interface.

In practical implementation of the embodiments of the present application, the first implementation manner and the second implementation manner may be implemented in combination. For example, the speed limit point information acquired by the sending-end network element includes speed limit point information reported by the monitoring device and speed limit point information set by the bandwidth setting instruction.

The speed limit point information acquired by the network element at the sending end may have a repeated condition. For example, in the first case of the foregoing first implementation manner, when the speed limit points monitored by any monitoring device on the corresponding physical link include a speed limit point located on any monitoring device and a speed limit point connected to any monitoring device, the speed limit points monitored by the monitoring devices located on the same physical link may overlap, so that the reported speed limit point information of the same speed limit point is repeated. Under the condition that the first implementation manner and the second implementation manner are combined, for the same speed limit point, the situation that the speed limit point information reported by the monitoring device and the manually set speed limit point information are repeated may exist. For such a situation, after receiving the speed limit point information, the sending-end network element may perform deduplication processing on the received speed limit point information to obtain the speed limit point information after deduplication processing. For example, for the same speed limit point, if multiple pieces of speed limit point information are received, the latest speed limit point information (that is, the speed limit point information with the set time or the sending time closest to the current time) in the multiple pieces of speed limit point information is obtained as the speed limit point information after the duplication is removed, so that the timeliness and the effectiveness of the speed limit point information can be ensured.

S302, the network element of the sending end limits the speed of the slice message transmitted on the physical link based on the bandwidths of the speed limit points on the physical link.

As mentioned above, since the slice packet allowed to pass through by each speed limit point is also affected by the overhead bit number added by the speed limit point, the overhead bit number added by the speed limit point needs to be considered in the speed limit process. For each of the plurality of speed limit points, the sending-end network element may use the difference between the bandwidth of the speed limit point and the bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number as the threshold bandwidth, and control the passing speed of the slice packet to pass through the speed limit point in unit time to be less than the threshold bandwidth of the speed limit point. The bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number is the product of the overhead bit number and a preset message transmission rate.

In this embodiment, the sending-end network element may determine the connection relationship between the speed-limiting points on the physical link, and then limit the speed based on the connection relationship. Then, based on the speed limit point information of the multiple speed limit points on the physical link, the process of limiting the speed of the slice packet transmitted on the physical link may include:

b1, the sending end network element obtains the information of the hitching relation, and the information of the hitching relation is used for describing the connection relation of each speed limiting point on the physical link.

After the network element of the sending end acquires the speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points, a hitching relation chart is established based on the acquired speed limit point information. The information of the speed limit points can also comprise the marks of the speed limit points and the types of the speed limit points, and the marks of the speed limit points can comprise the marks of the equipment where the speed limit points are located and/or the numbers of the speed limit points. The identification of the device may include: internet Protocol (IP) address and/or Network Element Identification (NEID). The hitching relation information is established based on the identification of each speed limit point on the physical link and the type of the speed limit point of each speed limit point. The aforementioned hitching relationship information may be characterized by means of a relationship graph or a relationship table.

The types of the speed limit points comprise main road speed limit points or branch road speed limit points. Suppose a physical link includes m member links, m is a positive integer, the main road speed limit point is a speed limit point passed by the m member links together, and the branch road speed limit point is a speed limit point passed by the m member links respectively. Taking fig. 1 as an example, for the physical link 1031, the physical link includes 2 member links, and assuming that the 2 member links are respectively a first member link passing through the speed limit points A, B and C1 and a second member link passing through the speed limit points A, B and C2, the main road speed limit points are speed limit points a and B, the branch speed limit points are respectively a speed limit point C1 passing through the first member link and a speed limit point C2 passing through the second member link.

Fig. 4 is a schematic hitching relation diagram provided in the embodiment of the present application. The hitching relation information of the physical link includes: m first branches X corresponding to the m member links (e.g., m first branches X are in one-to-one correspondence with the m member links), and one second branch Y connected to the m first branches X. Each first branch X is used for recording the identifier X1 of the speed limit point of which the type of the speed limit point on the corresponding member link is the branch speed limit point, and the number of the identifiers of the speed limit points recorded on different first branches X can be the same or different. The second branch Y is used to record the identifier Y1 of the speed limit point with the type of the speed limit point on the physical link as the main road speed limit point. And the second branch Y is positioned behind the first branch X, so that when speed limitation is carried out on the basis of a hanging relation graph in the subsequent process, speed limitation is carried out on the basis of the first branch, then speed limitation is carried out on the basis of the second branch, and finally the sliced message with the speed limitation completed is output from a network element of a sending end.

Fig. 5 is a diagram illustrating hitching relationship information of physical link 1031 shown in fig. 1. As shown in fig. 5, physical link 1031 includes a first member link that passes through speed limit point A, B and C1, and a second member link that passes through speed limit point A, B and C2, respectively. The corresponding hitching relationship information includes: 2 first branches corresponding to the 2 member links, and one second branch Y connected to the 2 first branches. Assuming that the first branches corresponding to the first member link and the second member link are a first branch X1 and a first branch X2, respectively, the first branch X1 is used to record an identifier C1 of a speed limit point on the first member link, the first branch X2 is used to record an identifier C2 of a speed limit point on the second member link, and the second branch Y is used to record identifiers a and B of speed limit points whose types of speed limit points on the physical link are main road speed limit points.

In an alternative implementation manner, in the hitching relation information of the physical link, for each of the first branch and the second branch, the identifications of the speed limit points recorded by the branch may be randomly arranged.

In another alternative, for each of the first branch and the second branch, the identifications of the speed limiting points on the branch may be arranged according to a preset rule. For example, when the sending-end network element limits the speed of the slice packet in the network element, the actual speed limiting effect is affected not only by the bandwidth of the speed limiting point but also by the overhead bit number of the speed limiting point, so that the identifiers of the speed limiting points in the branch can be arranged based on the overhead bit number of the speed limiting point and the bandwidth. The identification of the speed limiting point on the branch meets at least one of the following conditions:

in the first case, when the bandwidths of the two speed-limiting points are the same and the number of overhead bits is different, the identifiers of the two speed-limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence of the corresponding overhead bits from large to small. Because the length of the slice message passing through the speed limit point is unchanged and the bandwidth of the speed limit point is unchanged, the actual speed limit effect of the speed limit point is determined by the number of overhead bits added, and the larger the number of overhead bits added is, the larger the limit on the transmission rate of the slice message is. Therefore, when the bandwidth of the two speed-limiting points is the same and the overhead bit number is different, the corresponding speed-limiting point with the larger overhead bit number is marked in front. Therefore, when speed limiting is carried out, the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of the previous speed limiting point are preferentially adopted for speed limiting, so that the speed limiting requirement of the next speed limiting point is met when the sliced message after speed limiting reaches the next speed limiting point, and the passing time delay of the sliced message at the next speed limiting point is reduced.

In the second case, when the overhead bit numbers of two speed-limiting points are the same and the bandwidths are different, the identifiers of the two speed-limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence of the corresponding bandwidths from small to large. Because the length of the slice message passing through the speed limit point is unchanged and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point is unchanged, the actual speed limit effect of the speed limit point is determined by the bandwidth of the speed limit point, and the smaller the bandwidth is, the greater the limit on the transmission rate of the slice message is. Therefore, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed limit points are the same and the bandwidths are different, the corresponding speed limit point with the smaller bandwidth is marked in front. Therefore, when speed limitation is carried out, the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of the previous speed limiting point are preferentially adopted to carry out speed limitation, so that the speed limiting requirement of the next speed limiting point is met when the sliced message after speed limitation reaches the next speed limiting point, and the passing time delay of the sliced message at the next speed limiting point is reduced.

In the embodiment of the application, each first branch usually records the identifications of the speed limit points of which all the speed limit point types on the corresponding member link are branch speed limit points; the second branch usually records the identifications of the speed limit points of which all the types of the speed limit points on the physical link are main road speed limit points. Therefore, the hooking relation information of the physical link is ensured to cover the identifications of all the speed-limiting points on the physical link, and the omission of the speed-limiting points is avoided to influence the speed-limiting result.

In practical implementation, for each of the first branch and the second branch, the identifications of the speed limit points recorded by the branch can be integrated, and the identification of one of the speed limit points needing to be integrated is reserved. In this way, the number of the identifiers of the speed limit points recorded by each first branch is less than or equal to the total number of the identifiers of the speed limit points of which the types of the speed limit points on the corresponding member links are branch speed limit points; the number of the identifications of the speed limit points recorded by the second branch is less than or equal to the total number of the identifications of the speed limit points of which the types of the speed limit points on the physical link are main road speed limit points. Illustratively, when the sending-end network element limits the speed of the slice packet in the network element, the actual speed limiting effect is not only affected by the bandwidth of the speed limiting point, but also affected by the overhead bit number of the speed limiting point. Therefore, the identification of the speed limit points in the branch can be integrated based on the overhead bit number and the bandwidth of the speed limit points. The integrated speed limit point identification mainly comprises the following three types:

in the first category, the number of overhead bits is the same, and the bandwidth is the same. For the branch recorded with the identifications of the two speed limit points, because the actual speed limit effects of the two speed limit points are the same, the identifications of the two speed limit points are integrated into the identification of one speed limit point, and finally the updated branch is obtained. The speed limit based on the branch can achieve the same effect of speed limit based on the branch before updating. But the updated branch records have fewer identifications of the speed limit points and lower complexity. Illustratively, the integration process includes: and for each branch in the first branch and the second branch, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed limit points are the same and the bandwidths are the same, deleting the mark of one speed limit point in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch.

And in the second category, the overhead bit number is the same, and the bandwidth is different. For the branch recorded with the identifications of the two speed limit points, because the speed limit point with small bandwidth can realize effective speed limit relative to the speed limit point with large bandwidth, the identification of the speed limit point with small bandwidth can be reserved, and the updated branch is finally obtained. The speed limit based on the branch can achieve the same effect of speed limit based on the branch before updating. But the updated branch records have fewer identifications of the speed limit points and lower complexity. Illustratively, the integration process includes: for each branch in the first branch and the second branch, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed limit points are the same and the bandwidths are different, deleting the identifier of the speed limit point with the larger bandwidth in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch.

And in the third category, the marks of two speed limit points with different overhead bit numbers and the same bandwidth are identified. For the branch recorded with the identifications of the two speed-limiting points, the speed-limiting point with large overhead bit can realize effective speed limitation compared with the speed-limiting point with small overhead bit, so the identification of the speed-limiting point with small overhead bit can be reserved, and the updated branch is finally obtained. The speed limit based on the branch can achieve the same effect of speed limit based on the branch before updating. But the updated branch records have fewer identifications of the speed limit points and lower complexity. Illustratively, the integration process includes: and for each branch in the first branch and the second branch, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed limit points are different and the bandwidths are the same, deleting the mark of the speed limit point with the smaller overhead bit number in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch.

The updated branch structure is simple, and the complexity of speed limiting based on the branch can be reduced.

It should be noted that the aforementioned speed limit point information further includes an overhead bit number. Thus, the network element at the sending end can arrange and/or integrate the identifiers of the speed-limiting points on the branches through the overhead bit number and the bandwidth in the acquired speed-limiting point information.

B2, the sending end network element carries out multi-stage speed limit on the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link according to the connection relation of each speed limit point in the hitching relation information based on the bandwidth of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link.

As described above, the identifier of each speed limit point recorded in the hitching relation information corresponds to one bandwidth. And the network element at the sending end sequentially limits the speed of the slice messages to be transmitted on the physical link by adopting the bandwidth corresponding to the identifiers of the speed-limiting points according to the arrangement sequence of the identifiers of the speed-limiting points on each branch in the hitching relation information. The speed limit on the branch corresponding to one member link may include a first-stage speed limit or a multi-stage speed limit, where the multi-stage speed limit refers to that each slice packet at least passes through two stages of speed limits, that is, the speed limit is performed by using the bandwidth of at least two speed limit points.

If the hooking relation information of the physical link is as shown in fig. 5, for a slice message to be transmitted on the physical link, if the slice message is a slice message to pass through the first member link, the slice message is subjected to speed limitation sequentially by using the bandwidth of the speed limiting point C1, the bandwidth of the speed limiting point a and the bandwidth of the speed limiting point B; if the slice message is a slice message to pass through the second member link, the bandwidth of the speed limit point C2, the bandwidth of the speed limit point A and the bandwidth of the speed limit point B are adopted to carry out speed limit on the slice message in sequence.

For example, for each speed limit point recorded in the hitching relation information, the process of limiting the speed of the message by using the bandwidth of the speed limit point includes: and taking the difference between the bandwidth of the speed limit point and the bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number as a threshold bandwidth, and controlling the passing speed of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point in unit time to be smaller than the threshold bandwidth of the speed limit point.

In the embodiment of the present application, the following two optional manners may be adopted to perform specific speed limitation on the slice packet. In a first optional manner, the sending-end network element establishes a correspondence between the identifier of the speed-limiting point and the bandwidth based on the acquired speed-limiting point information of the multiple speed-limiting points on the physical link, and stores the correspondence in a preset storage space. When multi-stage speed limiting is carried out, after the mark of one speed limiting point in the hitching relation information is traversed, the corresponding relation between the mark of the speed limiting point and the bandwidth is inquired by adopting the mark, and the speed limiting of the slice message is carried out based on the inquired bandwidth. Because the corresponding relation is additionally stored in the preset storage space, the corresponding relation is convenient to update in time after the speed limit point information is updated, and the reliability of the speed limit is ensured. In a second optional manner, the hitching relation information records the identifiers of the speed limit points and the bandwidth corresponding to the identifier of each speed limit point. When multi-stage speed limiting is carried out, after the identifier of one speed limiting point in the hitching relation information is traversed, the speed limiting of the slice message is carried out by adopting the bandwidth corresponding to the identifier. Because the identification corresponding to the speed limit point is directly recorded in the hitching relation information, the inquiry of the bandwidth corresponding to the identification of the speed limit point is not needed in the speed limit process, the complexity of the speed limit process is reduced, and the speed limit time delay is reduced.

In the embodiment of the application, the network element at the sending end can realize multi-stage speed limit on the slice messages in a hardware speed limit mode or a software speed limit mode.

The first hardware speed limiting mode is as follows:

for each physical link, the sending-end network element is pre-configured with speed limiters with preset number of hardware. The speed limiter is a speed limiting circuit or a speed limiting chip, and the preset number is usually greater than or equal to the total number of the speed limiting points of the physical link. After the sending end network element obtains the hitching relation information, a plurality of speed limiters are selected from the speed limiters with the preset number according to the arrangement sequence of the marks of the speed limiting points in the hitching relation information, and a connection network of the plurality of speed limiters is established. The plurality of speed limiters correspond to the marks of the plurality of speed limiting points in the hitching relation information one by one. The process of establishing a network connection of multiple speed-limiting points is called hooking. After the hitching is completed, the inlets of the connection networks of the plurality of speed limiters are connected with the output end of the slicing module in the sending end network element, and the outlets of the connection networks are connected with the physical port of the sending end network element, which is used for outputting the slicing message to the physical link. The slicing module is used for executing a message slicing process on the service message. Each speed limiter is used for limiting the speed of the slice message passing through the speed limiter by adopting the bandwidth of the corresponding speed limiting point. The speed limiting process refers to that the speed limiter controls the passing speed of the sliced message passing through the speed limiter in unit time to be smaller than the bandwidth of a corresponding speed limiting point, and the passing speed of the sliced message in unit time can be represented by the product of the length of the sliced message and the preset message transmission rate. As described above, since the slice packet allowed to pass through each speed limit point is also affected by the number of overhead bits added by the speed limit point, each speed limiter can simulate the actual speed limit situation of the corresponding speed limit point to limit the speed. The speed limiting process includes: the speed limiter takes the difference between the bandwidth of the speed limiting point and the bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number as the threshold bandwidth, and controls the passing speed of the slice message passing through the speed limiter in unit time to be smaller than the threshold bandwidth of the corresponding speed limiting point. The bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number is the product of the overhead bit number and a preset message transmission rate.

Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a connection network of the speed governor corresponding to the hitching relationship information of the physical link shown in fig. 5. As shown in fig. 6, after acquiring the hitching relationship information, the sending-end network element establishes a connection network of 4 speed limiters according to the arrangement order of the identifiers of the speed limiting points in the hitching relationship information. The 4 speed limiters are respectively speed limiters 1-4. The 4 speed limiters are respectively corresponding to the marks C1, C2, A and B of the 4 speed limiting points in the hitching relation information one by one. The governors 1 and 2 corresponding to the speed limit points C1 and C2 are connected to the governor 3 corresponding to the speed limit point a, respectively, and the governor 3 is also connected to the governor 4 corresponding to the speed limit point B. The speed limiters 1 and 2 are the entrances of the connection network, and the speed limiter 4 is the exit of the connection network.

Second, software speed limit mode:

for each physical link, after acquiring the hitching relation information, the sending-end network element allocates a plurality of software speed limiters (i.e. allocates a plurality of software resources for limiting speed) according to the sequence of the identifiers of the speed limiting points in the hitching relation information, and establishes a connection network of the plurality of speed limiters. The plurality of speed limiters correspond to the marks of the plurality of speed limiting points in the hooking relation information one by one. The process of establishing a network connection of multiple speed-limiting points is called hooking. The function of the connection network of the hooked software speed limiter is consistent with that of the hardware speed limiter, and the connection mode and the function of each speed limiter correspondingly refer to the connection mode and the function of the speed limiter in the hardware speed limiting mode.

Compared with a software speed limiting mode, the hardware speed limiting mode has higher speed limiting reliability, and the speed limiter is easy to manage and maintain.

It should be noted that, for a physical link, when the corresponding hitching relationship information includes a plurality of first branches, a scheduler needs to be set, where the scheduler may be a hardware scheduler or a software scheduler, the scheduler corresponds to a connection point between the plurality of first branches and a second branch, and the scheduler is configured to schedule slice packets from speed limiters corresponding to different first branches, so as to prevent the slice packets from being congested. Illustratively, the aforementioned scheduler is a Round Robin (RR) scheduler.

S303, the network element at the sending end updates the speed limit point information of at least one speed limit point in the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link.

The speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points may be changed due to environmental changes or changes in other factors. For example, the speed limit point is an air interface, and the bandwidth of the speed limit point changes due to the change of the environment where the speed limit point is located, such as the change of the weather in cloudy or sunny days. For another example, after a hardware device at a certain speed limit point fails, the hardware device is replaced. Therefore, the certain speed limit point is updated, and the corresponding speed limit point information, such as the bandwidth and the identification of the speed limit point, is also changed. The sending end network element needs to acquire the changed speed limit point information to ensure the speed limit effect.

In the embodiment of the present application, there are various ways for a sending-end network element to obtain updated speed limit point information, and the following two examples are used in the embodiment of the present application for explanation:

in the first mode, when the information of any one speed limit point in the plurality of speed limit points changes, the network element at the sending end acquires the information of the speed limit point of the any one speed limit point.

The process of the sending-end network element obtaining the speed limit point information of any speed limit point may refer to the process of the sending-end network element obtaining the speed limit point information of one speed limit point on the physical link in S301. For example, the speed limit point information of any speed limit point reported by the monitoring device is received, or the speed limit point information of any speed limit point is acquired in a manual configuration mode.

And when the information of any one speed limit point in the plurality of speed limit points changes, the network element of the sending end acquires the information of the speed limit point of the any speed limit point. Therefore, the sending terminal network element can acquire the changed speed limit point information in real time, and the speed limit is timely and accurate.

In the second mode, the network element at the sending end periodically obtains the speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points.

In each obtaining period, the process of the sending-end network element obtaining the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points may refer to the process of the sending-end network element obtaining the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link in S301. For example, the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points reported by the monitoring device is received, or the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points is acquired in a manual configuration mode.

S304, the sending end network element limits the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the updated bandwidth of the plurality of speed limit points.

The sending-end network element may refer to the speed limiting process in S302 in the process of limiting the speed of the slice packet to be transmitted on the physical link based on the updated bandwidths of the multiple speed limiting points.

Referring to the above B2, if the sending-end network element establishes a correspondence between the identifier of the speed limit point and the bandwidth, the sending-end network element updates the correspondence between the identifier of the speed limit point and the bandwidth based on the updated speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points; and inquiring the updated bandwidths of the plurality of speed limit points based on the updated corresponding relation so as to limit the speed of the slice messages to be transmitted on the physical link.

If the hitching relationship information records the identification of the speed limit points and the bandwidth corresponding to the identification of each speed limit point, the sending end network element updates the hitching relationship information based on the updated speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points; and then limiting the speed of the slice messages to be transmitted on the physical link based on the updated hitching relation information.

In the related art, for a member link, a sending end network element needs to limit the speed of a sliced message once, and the bandwidth used for limiting the speed is a fixed bandwidth. That is, after the bandwidth is set by the staff member, the bandwidth is not changed. This results in less flexibility in the bandwidth used for rate limiting.

In this embodiment, the sending-end network element may update the information of the speed limit point of at least one of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link, for example, periodically update or update the information of the speed limit point in real time. As such, the plurality of bandwidths for the rate limit are dynamically variable. The bandwidths are adjusted according to actual conditions, so that the bandwidths for limiting the speed can be effectively adapted to different speed-limiting environments, and the flexibility of the bandwidths for limiting the speed is improved.

S305, the network element of the sending end sends the slice message after speed limiting to a physical link.

In this embodiment of the application, after the sending-end network element performs the multi-stage speed limiting, as in the foregoing S302 or S304, the multi-stage speed limiting is output to the physical link through the physical interface on the sending-end network element. At the moment, the slice messages passing through the physical link are transmitted on the basis of ensuring the maximum payload bandwidth of the slice messages as much as possible, so that the bandwidth utilization rate is improved.

To sum up, in this embodiment of the present application, a sending-end network element limits a speed of a slice packet to be transmitted on a physical link according to an acquired bandwidth of a plurality of speed-limiting points on the physical link. Therefore, before the slice message passes through the physical link, the speed is limited at the network element of the sending end according to the bandwidth of each speed limiting point. Therefore, the slice messages after speed limiting already meet the bandwidth requirements of each speed limiting point when being actually transmitted on the physical link. On the basis, the network element of the sending end directly obtains the bandwidth of the speed limit point, and the speed limit is carried out based on the obtained bandwidth. The speed-limiting bandwidth of each speed-limiting point does not need to be manually determined, the labor cost is reduced, the acquisition process of the speed-limiting bandwidth is simplified, and the acquisition efficiency of the speed-limiting bandwidth is improved.

In the embodiment of the application, the communication system also supports a bandwidth prediction function, and flexible speed limitation can be realized by predicting the change of the bandwidth in advance. The bandwidth prediction function comprises the steps of:

and C1, the network element at the sending end receives the bandwidth prediction information sent by the prediction equipment.

The prediction device corresponds to at least one physical link in the plurality of physical links, and is used for predicting the changed bandwidth of the monitored speed limit point on the corresponding physical link. The setting mode of the prediction device may be the same as or similar to the setting mode of the monitoring device in the aforementioned S301. For example, each physical link in the aggregated link includes at least one hardware device, which includes the aforementioned prediction device. In the first case, the hardware device where the speed limit point in the at least one hardware device is located is a prediction device, and the speed limit point monitored by any prediction device on the corresponding physical link includes the speed limit point located on any prediction device and/or the speed limit point connected with any prediction device. In a second case, a designated hardware device of the at least one hardware device is a predicted device, and the speed limit points monitored by the predicted device on the corresponding physical link include one or more speed limit points on the corresponding physical link. The speed limit point monitored by the prediction device is a speed limit point with variable bandwidth on a corresponding physical link, such as an air interface.

The prediction device and the monitoring device may be the same device or different devices. The bandwidth change condition of the monitored speed limiting point is configured in the prediction device in advance. After monitoring that a certain speed limit point meets a bandwidth change condition, the prediction equipment predicts the changed bandwidth of the certain speed limit point and sends bandwidth prediction information comprising the predicted bandwidth to a sending end network element. The predicted bandwidth is the bandwidth after the change of a certain speed limit point which is monitored by the prediction equipment on a corresponding physical link and meets the bandwidth change condition.

Illustratively, the bandwidth change condition is: the method comprises the following steps that a preset change is generated in the environment where a speed limit point is located, or the preset change is generated after the preset time length of the environment where the speed limit point is located; or the bandwidth of the speed limit point is reset after the preset time length, and the like. Wherein, when the speed limit point is an empty port, the preset change comprises: temperature variation with variation amplitude larger than the preset temperature difference, and/or humidity variation with variation amplitude larger than the preset humidity difference, and the like.

In an alternative mode, the prediction device is used for determining whether the speed limit point meets the bandwidth change condition in an autonomous monitoring mode; in another alternative, the forecasting device is configured to receive a trigger message sent by another device, where the trigger message is used to indicate whether the speed limit point monitored by the forecasting device satisfies the bandwidth change condition. For example, the prediction device includes an environment monitoring module, and the prediction device monitors the environment of the speed limit point through the environment monitoring module to determine whether the speed limit point meets the bandwidth change condition; for another example, the forecasting device is provided with a communication module for receiving a trigger message sent by an environment monitoring device arranged near the speed limit point.

In the embodiment of the application, after monitoring that a certain speed limit point meets the bandwidth change condition, the prediction device can predict the changed bandwidth of the certain speed limit point in various ways. For example, if the bandwidth change condition is: the method comprises the following steps that a preset change is generated in the environment where a speed limit point is located, or the preset change is generated after the preset time length of the environment where the speed limit point is located; the prediction device determines the changed bandwidth according to the change relationship between the environment (such as temperature and/or humidity) and the bandwidth. If the bandwidth variation condition is: the bandwidth of the speed limit point is reset after the preset duration, and the predicting equipment acquires the reset bandwidth in advance as the predicted bandwidth.

C2, the network element of the sending end limits the speed of the slice message to pass a certain speed limit point in the slice messages transmitted on the physical link based on the predicted bandwidth.

The process of limiting the speed of the slice packet to pass through a certain speed-limiting point in the slice packets transmitted on the physical link by the network element at the transmitting end based on the predicted bandwidth may refer to the speed-limiting process in S302.

Referring to B2, if the sending-end network element establishes a correspondence between the identifier of the speed-limiting point and the bandwidth. The sending end network element updates the corresponding relation between the identification of the speed limit point and the bandwidth based on the speed limit bandwidth; and inquiring and obtaining the bandwidths of the plurality of speed limit points based on the updated corresponding relation so as to limit the speed of the slice messages to be transmitted on the physical link. The bandwidth of the plurality of speed limit points obtained by query comprises the predicted bandwidth, and the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link comprises the slice message to pass through a certain speed limit point.

If the hitching relation information records the identification of the speed limit point and the bandwidth corresponding to the identification of each speed limit point, the sending terminal network element updates the hitching relation information based on the speed limit bandwidth; and then limiting the speed of the slice messages to be transmitted on the physical link based on the updated hitching relation information. The hitching relation information comprises the predicted bandwidth, and the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link comprises the slice message to pass through the certain speed limit point.

In the related art, the upper limit bandwidth is determined by adopting the bandwidth obtained by converting the minimum length of the slice message passing through the member link, so that the actual payload bandwidth (namely, the payload of the slice message actually passing through a speed limit point in unit time) of the longer slice message passing through the member link is far less than the maximum payload bandwidth of the longer slice message. The proportion of payload passing through in a unit time length of such a long-length slice packet (i.e., a slice packet whose length is greater than the minimum length) to the length of the slice packet (this proportion is referred to as a throughput rate) is low, so that the communication loss of the long-length slice packet in the member link is large (for example, up to 30% or more).

In the embodiment of the application, the network element at the transmitting end directly adopts the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of each speed limit point to limit the speed of the slice messages with different lengths. Therefore, for slice messages with different lengths, the slice messages can pass through the maximum payload bandwidth or the maximum payload bandwidth close to the maximum payload bandwidth as far as possible, and therefore communication loss is reduced.

However, if the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice packet corresponding to a certain speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point is greater than the bandwidth of the speed limit point. At the network element of the sending end, the congestion phenomenon is easy to occur when the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point are adopted for speed limit. Severe congestion may result in the loss of slice messages, and thus the possibility of random packet loss.

In the embodiment of the application, the network element at the sending end reduces congestion by monitoring the flow, so that random packet loss is avoided. Illustratively, the sending-end network element according to the embodiment of the present application further supports a flow control backpressure mode. The flow control back pressure refers to the flow control of the slice message realized by a feedback mode. In an embodiment of the present application, the process of fluidic back pressure includes:

for each speed limit point recorded by the hitching relation information, when the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point is larger than the bandwidth of the speed limit point, the sending end network element reduces the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point by discarding the service message. The service message is used for slicing to obtain a slicing message. And the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message of the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point is calculated based on a preset conversion algorithm. Illustratively, the conversion algorithm satisfies: w ═ v (h1+ h 2); w is a bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message of the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point, v is a preset message transmission rate, h1 is the length of the slice message, and h2 is the overhead length (such as the overhead bit number or the overhead byte number) of the speed limit point. In the conversion algorithm, the units of h1 and h2 are the same, or the units are the same after conversion.

Referring to the foregoing S302, when speed limitation is performed in a hardware speed limiting manner or a software speed limiting manner, the inlets of the connection networks of the plurality of speed limiters are connected to the slicing module. Assuming that the first speed limiter is any one of the plurality of speed limiters, the first speed limit point is a speed limit point corresponding to the first speed limiter. The first speed limiter is further configured to detect whether a bandwidth corresponding to a sum of the length of the slice packet and the overhead bit number of the first speed limit point is greater than a bandwidth of the first speed limit point. When the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the sliced message and the overhead bit number of the first speed limit point is larger than the bandwidth of the first speed limit point, in a first optional mode, the first speed limiter feeds back backpressure information to the upstream of the first speed limiter (if the first speed limiter is the entrance of the connection network of the plurality of speed limiters, the first speed limiter feeds back backpressure information to the slicing module, and if the first speed limiter is not the entrance of the connection network of the plurality of speed limiters, the first speed limiter feeds back backpressure information to the upper-stage speed limiter), wherein the backpressure information is used for indicating that the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the sliced message and the overhead bit number of the first speed limit point is larger than the bandwidth of the first speed limit point. The back pressure information is fed back forwards by each speed limiter according to the sequence of the reverse arrangement sequence of the marks of the speed limiting points in the hitching relation information until the back pressure information reaches the slicing module; the slicing module reduces the number of the slicing messages sent in unit time length by discarding the service messages to be sliced, namely reduces the message flow, thereby reducing the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slicing messages reaching the first speed limiter and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point.

As shown in fig. 6, assuming that the first speed governor is the speed governor 4, it is connected to the speed governor 4 at the stage immediately above the speed governor: the speed governor 3 sends back pressure information, and the speed governor 3 sends back pressure information to the speed governor 3 at the previous stage: the speed limiter 1 and/or the speed limiter 2 send back pressure information, and the speed limiter 1 and/or the speed limiter 2 send the back pressure information to the slicing module.

In a second alternative, the plurality of speed limiters are further connected to the slicing module, respectively. When the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message and the overhead bit number of the first speed limit point is larger than the bandwidth of the first speed limit point, the first speed limiter feeds back backpressure information to the slice module. Compared with the first optional mode, in the mode, the time delay from the first speed limiter to the slicing module is small, and the rapid adjustment of the message flow can be realized. However, the connection relationship inside the network element at the sending end is relatively complex, and the management cost is relatively high.

In this embodiment, the sending-end network element may determine the number of the discarded service packets according to the congestion condition of the first speed limiter. The more severe the congestion situation, the greater the number of discarded traffic packets. Illustratively, the backpressure information includes a congestion level reflecting the severity of the condition of congestion. The first speed limiter can make a difference between a bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message and the overhead bit number of the first speed limit point and a bandwidth of the first speed limit point, and query a preset corresponding relation between the congestion level and the difference range by using the obtained target difference. And carrying the congestion level corresponding to the difference range of the target difference in the backpressure information. And the network element at the sending end inquires the corresponding relation between the congestion level and the discarded number based on the congestion level in the received back pressure information to obtain the target discarded number, and discards the service message of the target discarded number. Illustratively, the service messages carry priorities, and the sending-end network element discards the service messages according to the sequence of priorities from low to high, so that the discarding of the service messages with high priorities is reduced as much as possible on the premise of ensuring the reduction of congestion.

Because the sending end network element carries out flow control by directly discarding the service message, random packet loss caused by loss of the slice message is avoided, and especially, the packet loss of the service message with high priority is reduced, thereby ensuring the reliability of the communication process. And the network element at the sending end adopts a flow control back pressure mode, so that the slice messages with various lengths can be transmitted as much as possible, and the transmission efficiency of the slice messages is effectively improved.

In the foregoing embodiment of the present application, a sending-end network element and a receiving-end network element in a communication system are relatively general. In a specific application, the network element may be both a sending-end network element and a receiving-end network element.

It should be noted that, the order of the steps of the communication method provided in the embodiment of the present application may be appropriately adjusted, and the steps may also be increased or decreased according to the circumstances, and any method that can be easily conceived by a person skilled in the art within the technical scope disclosed in the present application should be included in the protection scope of the present application, and therefore, the description is omitted. In addition, the beneficial effects of the device embodiment are similar to the beneficial effects of the corresponding steps of the method, and are not described in detail below.

Fig. 7 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 40 according to an embodiment of the present application. The device 40 is applied to a sending-end network element, and the device 40 includes a first obtaining module 401 and a first speed limiting module 402. The first obtaining module 401 is configured to obtain, for each of multiple physical links bundled by a PLA, speed limit point information of multiple speed limit points on the physical link. The speed limit point information includes a bandwidth. The first speed limit module 402 is configured to limit the speed of a slice packet to be transmitted on a physical link based on bandwidths of multiple speed limit points on the physical link. The first obtaining module 401 is configured to receive monitoring information sent by a monitoring device, where the monitoring device corresponds to at least one physical link in multiple physical links, and the monitoring information includes speed limit point information of a speed limit point monitored by the monitoring device on the corresponding physical link.

Optionally, each physical link in the multiple physical links includes at least one hardware device, the hardware device where the speed limit point in the at least one hardware device is located is a monitoring device, and the speed limit point monitored by any monitoring device on the corresponding physical link includes a speed limit point located on any monitoring device and/or a speed limit point connected to any monitoring device; a first obtaining module 401, configured to: and receiving monitoring information sent by the monitoring equipment on each physical link.

In an optional implementation manner, the first obtaining module 401 is configured to: and receiving a bandwidth setting instruction, wherein the bandwidth setting instruction comprises speed limit point information of one or more speed limit points in the plurality of physical links.

Optionally, as shown in fig. 7, the apparatus further includes: a second obtaining module 403. The second obtaining module 403 is configured to: when the information of any speed limit point in the plurality of speed limit points changes, acquiring the information of the speed limit point of any speed limit point; and/or periodically acquiring the speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points.

Optionally, as shown in fig. 7, the apparatus further includes: a receiving module 404 and a second speed limit module 405. The receiving module 404 is configured to receive bandwidth prediction information sent by the prediction device. The prediction device corresponds to at least one of the plurality of physical links. The bandwidth prediction information includes a predicted bandwidth. The predicted bandwidth is the bandwidth after the bandwidth of any speed limit point on the physical link corresponding to the prediction equipment predicted by the prediction equipment is changed. And a second speed limit module 405, configured to limit, based on the predicted bandwidth, a speed of a slice packet to pass through any speed limit point in slice packets to be transmitted on the physical link.

In an alternative implementation, the first speed limit module 402 in the communication device 40 may limit the speed based on the hitching relationship information. Illustratively, the first speed limit module 402 is configured to: and acquiring hitching relation information, wherein the hitching relation information is used for describing the connection relation of each speed limit point on the physical link. The hitching relation information is established based on the identification of each speed limit point on the physical link and the type of the speed limit point of each speed limit point. And performing multi-stage speed limiting on the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link according to the connection relation of each speed limiting point in the hitching relation information based on the bandwidth of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link.

Optionally, as shown in fig. 7, the apparatus 40 further includes: and the processing module 406 is used for recording each speed limit point of the hitching relation information. When the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point is larger than the bandwidth of the speed limit point, the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point is reduced in a mode of discarding the service message. The service message is used for slicing to obtain a slicing message.

Illustratively, the physical links include m member links, with m being a positive integer. The speed limit point information further includes: the identification of the speed limit point and the type of the speed limit point. The speed limit point type comprises a main road speed limit point or a branch road speed limit point. The main road speed limit point is a speed limit point which is passed by m member links together, and the branch road speed limit points are speed limit points which are respectively passed by m member links.

In an alternative example, the hitching relationship information of the physical link includes information described with reference to fig. 4, that is, the first branch and the second branch, which is not described herein again. Illustratively, for each of the first and second branches, the identification of the speed limit point on the branch satisfies at least one of: when the bandwidths of the two speed-limiting points are the same and the overhead bit numbers are different, the identifications of the two speed-limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence of the corresponding overhead bit numbers from large to small; when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed-limiting points are the same and the bandwidths are different, the identifications of the two speed-limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence of the corresponding bandwidths from small to large.

Optionally, for each of the first branch and the second branch, the processing module 406 is configured to delete the identifier of the speed limit point with the larger bandwidth in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed limit points are the same and the bandwidths are different; or, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed-limiting points are different and the bandwidths are the same, deleting the identifier of the speed-limiting point with the smaller overhead bit number in the two speed-limiting points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch; or, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed limit points are the same and the bandwidths are the same, deleting the identifier of one of the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain the updated branch.

Fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of a communication device 50 according to another embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 8, the communication device 50 includes: a processing chip 501, the processing chip 501 comprising a processing circuit 5011 and a communication interface 5012. The processing circuit is used in the communication method performed by the transmitting end in the foregoing embodiment of the present application. The processing circuit 5012 may be a processing chip or a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA). The processing chip may be an Integrated Circuit (ASIC) chip; the communication interface 5012 is used for the processing circuit 5011 to communicate with other devices. For example, the communication interface 5012 is used for the processing circuit 5011 to communicate with a receiving-side network element through an aggregated link. The communication interface 5012 includes an input interface and an output interface. The communication interface 5012 can be any one or any combination of the following devices: a network interface (e.g., an ethernet interface) or a wireless network card, etc.

In an alternative implementation, the processing circuit 5012 includes a cache structure, such as a memory structure within an FPGA or ASIC chip, for caching speed limit point information. In another optional implementation, the communication device 501 further includes: and the memory is used for caching the speed limit point information. For example, the memory is a flash memory (flash memory).

The embodiment of the present application provides a communication system, where the communication system includes a sending-end network element, a receiving-end network element, and multiple physical links bound by PLAs, and the sending-end network element includes a communication device, such as the communication device 40 or the communication device 50, provided in the embodiment of the present application. The structure of the communication system can refer to fig. 1 or fig. 2.

In this application, the terms "first," "second," and "third" are used for descriptive purposes only and are not to be construed as indicating or implying relative importance. The term "at least one" means 1 or more, and the term "plurality" means two or more unless explicitly defined otherwise. A refers to B and refers to the simple variation where A is the same as B or A is B.

It should be noted that: in the communication device provided in the above embodiment, when executing the communication method, only the division of the above functional modules is taken as an example, and in practical applications, the above function distribution may be completed by different functional modules according to needs, that is, the internal structure of the device is divided into different functional modules to complete all or part of the above described functions. In addition, the communication apparatus and the communication method provided by the above embodiments belong to the same concept, and specific implementation processes thereof are described in the method embodiments and are not described herein again.

It will be understood by those skilled in the art that all or part of the steps for implementing the above embodiments may be implemented by hardware, or may be implemented by a program instructing relevant hardware, where the program may be stored in a computer-readable storage medium, and the above-mentioned storage medium may be a read-only memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disk, etc.

The above description is only exemplary of the present application and should not be taken as limiting, as any modification, equivalent replacement, or improvement made within the spirit and principle of the present application should be included in the protection scope of the present application.

Claims

1. A communication method, applied to a network element at a transmitting end, the method comprising:

for each physical link in a plurality of physical links bound by a physical link aggregation PLA, acquiring speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link, wherein the speed limit point information comprises bandwidth;

and limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the bandwidths of the speed limiting points on the physical link.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: when the information of any one speed limit point in the plurality of speed limit points changes, acquiring the information of the speed limit point of any one speed limit point; and/or periodically acquiring the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points.

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the obtaining speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link comprises: receiving monitoring information sent by monitoring equipment, wherein the monitoring equipment corresponds to at least one physical link in the plurality of physical links, and the monitoring information comprises speed limit point information of a speed limit point monitored by the monitoring equipment on the corresponding physical link.

4. The method according to claim 3, wherein each of the plurality of physical links includes at least one hardware device, the hardware device where the speed limit point is located in the at least one hardware device is the monitoring device, and the speed limit point monitored by any monitoring device on the corresponding physical link includes the speed limit point located on any monitoring device and/or the speed limit point connected to any monitoring device;

the receiving of the monitoring information sent by the monitoring device includes: and receiving the monitoring information sent by the monitoring equipment on each physical link.

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the obtaining speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link comprises: and receiving a bandwidth setting instruction, wherein the bandwidth setting instruction comprises speed limit point information of one or more speed limit points in the plurality of physical links.

6. The method of any of claims 1 to 5, further comprising:

receiving bandwidth prediction information sent by prediction equipment, wherein the prediction equipment corresponds to at least one physical link in the plurality of physical links, the bandwidth prediction information comprises a predicted bandwidth, and the predicted bandwidth is the bandwidth after the change of a certain speed limit point monitored by the prediction equipment on the corresponding physical link after the certain speed limit point meets a bandwidth change condition;

and based on the predicted bandwidth, limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted through the certain speed limiting point in the slice messages to be transmitted on the physical link.

7. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the speed limiting the sliced packet to be transmitted on the physical link based on the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link comprises:

acquiring hitching relation information, wherein the hitching relation information is used for describing the connection relation of each speed limit point on the physical link, and the hitching relation information is established based on the identification of each speed limit point on the physical link and the type of the speed limit point of each speed limit point;

and performing multi-stage speed limiting on the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link according to the connection relation of each speed limiting point in the hitching relation information based on the bandwidth of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link.

8. The method of claim 7, further comprising: and for each speed limit point recorded by the hitching relation information, when the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point is larger than the bandwidth of the speed limit point, reducing the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point by discarding the service message, wherein the service message is used for slicing to obtain the slice message.

9. The method according to claim 7 or 8, wherein the physical link includes m member links, m is a positive integer, and the speed limit point information further includes: the method comprises the steps of identification of speed limit points and types of the speed limit points, wherein the types of the speed limit points comprise main road speed limit points or branch road speed limit points, the main road speed limit points are the speed limit points which are commonly passed by the m member links, and the branch road speed limit points are the speed limit points which are respectively passed by the m member links.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the hitching relationship information for the physical link comprises: m first branches corresponding to the m member links, and one second branch connected to the m first branches;

each first branch is used for recording the identifier of the speed limit point of which the speed limit point type on the corresponding member link is the branch speed limit point, and the second branch is used for recording the identifier of the speed limit point of which the speed limit point type on the physical link is the main road speed limit point.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein, for each of the first branch and the second branch, the identification of the speed limiting point on the branch satisfies at least one of:

when the bandwidths of the two speed-limiting points are the same and the overhead bit numbers are different, the identifications of the two speed-limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence of the corresponding overhead bit numbers from large to small;

when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed-limiting points are the same and the bandwidths are different, the identifications of the two speed-limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence of the corresponding bandwidths from small to large.

12. The method of claim 10, further comprising:

for each branch of the first branch and the second branch, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed limit points are the same and the bandwidths are different, deleting the identifier of the speed limit point with the larger bandwidth in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch;

or, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed-limiting points are different and the bandwidths are the same, deleting the identifiers of the speed-limiting points with smaller overhead bit numbers in the two speed-limiting points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch;

or, when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed limit points are the same and the bandwidths are the same, deleting the identifier of one of the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain the updated branch.

13. A communication apparatus, applied to a network element at a sending end, the apparatus comprising:

the device comprises a first acquisition module, a second acquisition module and a third acquisition module, wherein the first acquisition module is used for acquiring speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on a physical link for each of a plurality of physical links bound by a physical link aggregation PLA, and the speed limit point information comprises bandwidth;

and the first speed limiting module is used for limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the bandwidths of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link.

14. The apparatus of claim 13, further comprising: the second acquisition module is used for acquiring the information of any speed limit point of the plurality of speed limit points when the information of any speed limit point changes; and/or the speed limit point information is used for periodically acquiring the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points.

15. The apparatus according to claim 13 or 14, wherein the first obtaining module is further configured to receive monitoring information sent by a monitoring device, the monitoring device corresponds to at least one of the plurality of physical links, and the monitoring information includes speed limit point information of a speed limit point monitored by the monitoring device on the corresponding physical link.

16. The apparatus according to claim 15, wherein each of the plurality of physical links includes at least one hardware device, the hardware device where the speed limit point is located in the at least one hardware device is the monitoring device, and the speed limit point monitored by any monitoring device on the corresponding physical link includes the speed limit point located on any monitoring device and/or the speed limit point connected to any monitoring device;

the first obtaining module is further configured to: and receiving monitoring information sent by the monitoring equipment on each physical link.

17. The apparatus according to any one of claims 13 to 16, wherein the first obtaining module is further configured to: and receiving a bandwidth setting instruction, wherein the bandwidth setting instruction comprises speed limit point information of one or more speed limit points in the plurality of physical links.

18. The apparatus of any of claims 13 to 17, further comprising:

a receiving module, configured to receive bandwidth prediction information sent by a prediction device, where the prediction device corresponds to at least one physical link in the multiple physical links, the bandwidth prediction information includes a predicted bandwidth, and the predicted bandwidth is a bandwidth, predicted by the prediction device, of a bandwidth change of any speed limit point on the physical link corresponding to the prediction device;

and the second speed limiting module is used for limiting the speed of the slice messages to be transmitted through any speed limiting point in the slice messages to be transmitted on the physical link based on the predicted bandwidth.

19. The apparatus of any one of claims 13 to 18, wherein the first speed limiting module is configured to:

20. The apparatus of claim 19, further comprising: and the processing module is used for reducing the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point by discarding the service message when the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to pass through the speed limit point and the overhead bit number of the speed limit point is larger than the bandwidth of the speed limit point for each speed limit point recorded by the hitching relation information, wherein the service message is used for slicing to obtain the slice message.

21. The apparatus according to claim 19 or 20, wherein the physical link includes m member links, m is a positive integer, and the speed limit point information further includes: the method comprises the steps of identification of speed limit points and types of the speed limit points, wherein the types of the speed limit points comprise main road speed limit points or branch road speed limit points, the main road speed limit points are the speed limit points which are commonly passed by the m member links, and the branch road speed limit points are the speed limit points which are respectively passed by the m member links.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the hitching relationship information of the physical link comprises: m first branches corresponding to the m member links, and one second branch connected to the m first branches;

23. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein for each of the first branch and the second branch, the identification of the speed limiting point on the branch satisfies at least one of:

when the bandwidths of the two speed-limiting points are the same and the overhead bit numbers are different, the identifications of the two speed-limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the descending order of the corresponding overhead bit numbers;

24. The apparatus of claim 22, further comprising: a processing module to:

or when the overhead bit numbers of the two speed limit points are the same and the bandwidths are the same, deleting the identifier of one speed limit point in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch.

25. A communication apparatus, characterized in that the communication apparatus comprises:

a processing chip, the processing chip comprising: a processing circuit and a communication interface, the processing circuit being configured to perform the communication method of any one of claims 1 to 12;

the communication interface is used for the processing circuit to communicate with other devices.

26. A communication system, characterized in that the communication system comprises a sending end network element, a receiving end network element and a plurality of physical links bundled by a physical link aggregation PLA, and the sending end network element comprises the communication apparatus of claim 25.