CN114629841B

CN114629841B - Communication method, device and system

Info

Publication number: CN114629841B
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: 2023-05-16
Anticipated expiration: 2040-11-27
Also published as: CN114629841A; WO2022111325A1

Abstract

The application discloses a communication method, a device and a system, which belong to the field of communication and are used for transmitting service messages and are applied to a sending end network element. The method comprises the following steps: for each physical link in a plurality of physical links bundled by 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 bandwidth acquisition flow.

Description

Communication method, device and system

Technical Field

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

Background

Physical link aggregation (Physical Link Aggregation, PLA) technology, also known as trunk technology (trunk) or bundling technology (bundling), refers to a technology that bundles multiple physical links, thereby providing a logically larger pipe for traffic message transmission.

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

In the related art, in order to avoid the occurrence of random packet loss during the transmission process, for each member link, a network element at a transmitting end sets the 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 speed limiting (also referred to as traffic shaping). The bandwidth of the member link is the bandwidth set by the staff for speed limit. 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 limiting bandwidth of each speed limiting point needs to be comprehensively determined based on the bandwidth of each speed limiting point, overhead bits, 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 the labor cost is high. The bandwidth for speed limit is obtained by complex process, and the obtaining efficiency is low.

Disclosure of Invention

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

In a first aspect, a communication method is provided, applied to a sending end network element, and the method includes: and for each physical link in the plurality of physical links bound by PLA, the sending end network element acquires 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. The transmitting end network element limits the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the bandwidths of a plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link.

And the sending end network element limits the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link through the acquired bandwidths of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link. In this way, the slice message is already speed-limited at the transmitting end network element according to the bandwidths of the speed-limiting points before passing through the physical link. Therefore, the slice message after speed limit meets the bandwidth requirement of each speed limit point when actually transmitted on a physical link. On the basis, the sending end network element directly acquires the bandwidth of the speed limiting point, and limits the speed based on the acquired bandwidth. The speed limiting bandwidth of each speed limiting point is not required to be manually determined, so that the labor cost is reduced, the bandwidth obtaining process for speed limiting is simplified, and the bandwidth obtaining efficiency for speed limiting is improved.

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

In an alternative manner, the sending end network element may further update the speed limit point information of at least one speed limit point of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link, and limit the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the bandwidths of the plurality of updated speed limit points. Specifically, there are two ways of updating. In a first mode, when any one of the speed limiting point information in the plurality of speed limiting points changes, acquiring the speed limiting point information of any one of the speed limiting points; when any speed limiting point information in a plurality of speed limiting points changes, the sending end network element acquires the speed limiting point information of any speed limiting point. Therefore, the real-time acquisition of the changed speed limit point information by the network element of the transmitting end can be ensured, and the speed limit is timely and accurate. And in a second mode, periodically acquiring the speed limiting point information of the plurality of speed limiting points.

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

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

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

In an alternative example, the transmitting network element has or is connected to an input device, through which the user inputs bandwidth setting instructions. Correspondingly, 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 a user can acquire. The speed limit point information is typically speed limit point information of a speed limit point with a fixed bandwidth. Thus, the user generally only needs to set the speed limit point information once, and user operation is reduced.

The foregoing first and second implementations may be performed in combination. For example, the speed limit point information acquired by the network element at the transmitting end 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 receiving end may have repeated situations. In this case, 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 a plurality of speed limit point information are received, the latest speed limit point information (namely, the speed limit point information with the set time or the sending time closest to the current moment) in the plurality of speed limit point information is obtained as the speed limit point information after duplicate removal, so that timeliness and effectiveness of the speed limit point information can be ensured.

The redundant reporting of the speed limit point information can reduce the missed sending risk of the speed limit point information and improve the reliability of the speed limit point information received by the network element at the sending end.

In the embodiment of the application, the communication system also supports a bandwidth prediction function. Flexible speed limiting can be achieved by predicting the change in bandwidth in advance. The bandwidth prediction function includes the steps of: and receiving bandwidth prediction information sent by the prediction device. The predictive device corresponds to at least one physical link 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 a corresponding physical link, meets the bandwidth change condition. And based on the predicted bandwidth, limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link, wherein the slice message to be passed through the certain speed limiting point.

It should be noted that, the prediction device may repeatedly send the bandwidth prediction information, so as to ensure that the sending end network element can receive the bandwidth prediction information, and improve 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 bandwidth to be validated is predicted in advance by the prediction device, and the sending end network element is notified. The transmitting end network element responds to carry out bandwidth adjustment in the network element in advance, thereby realizing lossless bandwidth switching. Especially for some service messages with higher priority, the slice message loss caused by speed limiting failure is effectively prevented, so that the random packet loss phenomenon is avoided.

Optionally, the process of limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the speed limiting point information of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link includes: and acquiring hooking relation information, wherein the hooking relation information is used for describing the connection relation of each speed limiting point on the physical link. The hooking relation information is established based on the identification of each speed limiting point on the physical link and the speed limiting point type of each speed limiting point. And carrying out multistage 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 hooking relation information based on the bandwidths of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link.

For example, based on bandwidths of a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link, according to a connection relationship of each speed limit point in the hooking relationship information, a process of performing multistage speed limit on a slice message to be transmitted on the physical link includes: and regarding each speed limit point recorded in the hooking relation information, 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 be passed through the speed limiting point in unit time to be smaller than the threshold bandwidth of the speed limiting point.

The physical links comprise m member links, and m is a positive integer. The speed limit point information further includes: identification of speed limit points and speed limit point types. The speed limiting point type comprises a main road speed limiting point or a branch road speed limiting point. The main road speed limiting point is the speed limiting point through which the m member links pass together, and the branch road speed limiting point is the speed limiting point through which the m member links pass respectively.

Assume that the hooking relationship information of the physical link includes: m first branches corresponding to the m member links (e.g., m first branches are in one-to-one correspondence with the m member links), and one second branch connected to the m first branches; each first branch is used for recording the identification of the speed limit point with the speed limit point type of the corresponding member link being the speed limit point of the branch, and the second branch is used for recording the identification of the speed limit point with the speed limit point type of the physical link being the speed limit point of the main link.

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

In another alternative, for each of the first and second branches, the identification of the speed limit points on that 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:

in the first case, when the bandwidths of the two speed limiting points are the same and the cost bit numbers are different, the identifications of the two speed limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence from the large to the small corresponding cost bit numbers. When the speed is limited, the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of the previous speed limiting point are preferentially adopted to limit the speed, so that when the speed-limited slice message reaches the next speed limiting point, the speed limiting requirement of the next speed limiting point is met, and the passing time delay of the slice message at the next speed limiting point is reduced.

In the second case, when the number of overhead bits of the two speed limit points is the same and the bandwidths are different, the identifications of the two speed limit points are arranged in the branch according to the order of the bandwidths from small to large. When the speed is limited, the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of the previous speed limiting point are preferentially adopted to limit the speed, so that when the speed-limited slice message reaches the next speed limiting point, the speed limiting requirement of the next speed limiting point is met, and the passing time delay of the slice message at the next speed limiting point is reduced.

In the embodiment of the present application, each first branch generally records the identification of the speed limit points with all the speed limit point types on the corresponding member links being the branch speed limit points; the second branch typically records the identity of the speed limit points for which all speed limit point types on the physical link are main road speed limit points. Therefore, the information of the hooking relation of the physical link is ensured to cover the identification of all speed limiting points on the physical link, and the omission of the speed limiting points is avoided, so that the speed limiting result is influenced.

In actual implementation, for each of the first branch and the second branch, the identification of the speed limit point recorded by the branch can be integrated, and the identification of one speed limit point in the speed limit points needing to be integrated is reserved. Thus, the number of the identifications of the speed limit points recorded by each first branch is smaller than or equal to the total number of the identifications of the speed limit points with the speed limit point type of the branch speed limit point on the corresponding member link; the number of the identifications of the speed limiting points recorded by the second branch is smaller than or equal to the total number of the identifications of the speed limiting points with the speed limiting point type on the physical link as the speed limiting point of the main road.

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

The speed limit based on the updated branch can achieve the same effect of speed limit based on the branch before updating, but the number of marks of the speed limit points of the updated branch record 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 realizing the flow control of the slice message in a feedback mode. In this embodiment of the present application, the process of flow control back pressure includes: and for each speed limit point recorded by the hooking relation information, when the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to be passed 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 slice message to be passed through the speed limiting point and the overhead bit number of the speed limiting point by discarding the service message, wherein the service message is used for slicing to obtain the slice message.

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

In a third aspect, a communication device is provided. The communication device comprises at least one module which may be used 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 transmitting end network element, a receiving end network element and a plurality of physical links bundled by physical link aggregation PLA, wherein the transmitting 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 in the memory to cause the computer device to perform the method provided by the above-described first aspect or 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 provided in the first aspect or its various possible implementations.

In a seventh aspect, the present application provides a computer program product comprising computer instructions stored in a computer readable storage medium. The computer instructions may be read by a processor of a computer device from a computer-readable storage medium, and executed by the processor, to cause the computer device to perform the methods 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 a communication method as in any of the first aspects when the chip is run.

To sum up, in the embodiment of the present application, the sending end network element limits the speed of the slice packet to be transmitted on the physical link through the acquired bandwidths of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link. In this way, the slice message is already speed-limited at the transmitting end network element according to the bandwidths of the speed-limiting points before passing through the physical link. Therefore, the slice message after speed limit meets the bandwidth requirement of each speed limit point when actually transmitted on a physical link. On the basis, the sending end network element directly acquires the bandwidth of the speed limiting point, and limits the speed based on the acquired bandwidth. The speed limiting bandwidth of each speed limiting point is not required to be manually determined, so that the labor cost is reduced, the bandwidth obtaining process for speed limiting is simplified, and the bandwidth obtaining efficiency for speed limiting is improved.

Drawings

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

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

Fig. 3 is a schematic flow chart of a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a hooking relationship provided in an embodiment of the present application;

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of hooking information of the physical links shown in FIG. 1;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of a connection network of a speed limiter corresponding to the hooking 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 principles and technical solutions of the present application more apparent, the 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 related to a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 1, the communication system includes: a transmitting end network element 101, a receiving end network element 102 and an aggregation link. The aggregate link includes a plurality of physical links bundled. Fig. 1 assumes that the aggregate link includes 2 physical links, physical link 1031 and physical link 1032, respectively. At the transmitting network element, an aggregated link corresponds to a logical interface, also referred to as a link aggregation interface. The link to which each physical interface (also referred to as a physical port or a hardware interface) constituting the link aggregation interface corresponds is referred to as 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. As such, one physical link between the sending network element 101 and the receiving network element 102 is a direct or indirect path between one physical interface on the sending network element 101 to one physical interface on the receiving network element 102. The transmitting network element 101 is configured to slice the service packet to obtain a plurality of slice packets. The aggregation link is used for transmitting the plurality of slice messages. The receiving end network element 102 is configured to receive and sort the plurality of slice messages, and then recombine the sorted slice messages to obtain a service message. The network element may be, for example, a router, a switch, or other type of network element.

In the embodiment of the application, the aggregate link includes one or more types of physical links. For example, the aggregate link includes: at least one type of physical link, an ethernet link, a microwave link, an optical transport network (Optical Transport Network, OTN) link, and an advanced 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.

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

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a communication principle of a communication system related to a communication method according to an embodiment of the present application. As shown in fig. 2, one or more member links are configured on each physical link (which may also be considered as dividing the physical link into one or more member links), and one aggregate link includes a plurality of member links, where the number of member links of the aggregate link is greater than or equal to the number of physical links. Wherein, the member links belonging to the same physical link together form one 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 by one. The communication interface may be a null interface or a wired interface, which may be an optical interface or an electrical interface. When one member link uses air interface communication, the member link comprises a wireless link connected by the air interface; when a 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, a sending end network element is configured to perform a message slicing procedure on a service message to obtain a plurality of sliced messages, and then perform a message distribution procedure 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 collection process so as to collect a plurality of slice messages transmitted on the member links; then executing a slice caching process on the collected plurality of slice messages so as to sort the plurality of slice messages; and then executing a message reorganization process to reorganize the sequenced slice messages to obtain service messages.

For example, assume in FIG. 2 that the aggregate link includes n member links, member link 1 through member link n, n.gtoreq.2, respectively. After the sending end network element 101 executes a message slicing process and a message distribution process on the service message, slice messages 1, 3, 7 and 8 are distributed to the member link 1, and slice messages 2, 4, 5 and 6 are distributed to the member link n; the receiving end network element 102 obtains the service message composed of the slice messages 1-8 by executing the slice collection flow, the slice buffer flow and the message reorganization flow.

If any slice message is discarded in the transmission process, the slice message recombination failure of the receiving end network element can be caused, and random packet loss between the transmitting end network element and the receiving end network element occurs. Thus, it is necessary to ensure that each speed limit on the member links allows a slice message to pass. The speed limiting point is relative to the slice message sent by the sending end network element, and is a point for generating a speed limiting effect on the slice message sent by the sending end network element. For example, the speed limit may be a physical interface on a backplane, a board, or a device. The physical interface may be a connector, a fiber optic connector, a single board plug, an ethernet interface, or the like. The single board may comprise an intermediate frequency board. The speed limit point may also be a communication interface, such as an air or wired interface. When a slice message sent by a sending network element passes through a speed limiting point, the speed limiting point generally encapsulates additional 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 variable bandwidth speed limit point is easily affected by the external environment such as weather. Illustratively, the speed limit point is an air port (e.g., a microwave air port). 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 speed limit point is not changed after the deployment of the aggregation link. For example, the bandwidth of a physical port of an ethernet is 1Gpbs (gigabits per second).

To facilitate the reader's further understanding of the speed limit points and member links in the aggregated link, an example of fig. 1 is described below. For the physical link 1031, the slice message generated by the sending end network element 101 passes through the back plane 1, the single board 2 of the sending end network element 101 and the back plane 2 of the receiving end network element 102 in sequence, so as to be transmitted to the receiving end network element 102. The back plate 1 is integrated on the transmitting end network element 101, and may be configured integrally with the transmitting end network element 101. The back plate 2 is integrated on the receiving end network element 102, and may be integrally configured with the receiving end network element 102. The backplane 1 has a connector a and the board 1 has a connector B for connection with the backplane and air interfaces C1 and C2 for communication with the receiving-end network element 102. The connector a, the connector B, the air port C1 and the air port C2 respectively generate a speed limiting effect on the slice message sent by the network element 101 at the sending end. The speed limit point of physical link 1031 includes: connector a, connector B, air port C1 and air port C2. The physical link 1031 includes two member links, namely, a member link via connector a, connector B, and air interface C1, and a member link via connector a, connector B, and air interface C2. For the physical link 1032, the slice message generated by the sending end network element is sequentially transmitted to the receiving end network element 102 through the sending end network element 101, the slave device 1 and the slave device 2. The transmitting network element 101 has an ethernet interface D, the slave device 1 has an ethernet interface E for connection with the transmitting network element 101 and an air interface F for communication with the receiving 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 network element 101 at the sending end. The speed limit points of physical link 1032 include: the physical link 1032 includes one member link, i.e., a member link passing through the ethernet interface D, the ethernet interface E, and the air interface F.

It should be noted that, the speed limiting effects of two speed limiting points with the same bandwidth and overhead bit number on the same member link are the same (i.e. the speed limiting effect of the slice message after passing through the two speed limiting points is the same as the speed limiting effect after passing through any one of the two speed limiting points), and both 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 slice packet sent by the network element 101 at the transmitting end (i.e., the speed limiting effect of the slice packet after passing through the two connectors is the same as the speed limiting effect after passing through either one of the two connectors). Thus, both can be considered the same connector and the same speed limit point on the physical link. Similarly, the ethernet interface D and the ethernet interface E are connected by an ethernet interface connection, and since the ethernet interface connection generally does not have a speed limiting effect, the speed limiting effect of the two ethernet interfaces on the slice packet sent by the sending network element 101 is the same (i.e., the speed limiting effect of the slice packet after passing through the ethernet interface D, the ethernet interface connection and the ethernet interface E is the same as the speed limiting effect after passing through any one of the ethernet interface D and the ethernet interface E). As such, two ethernet interfaces may be considered the same ethernet interface and may be considered the same speed limit point on the physical link. And the speed limiting points with the same speed limiting effect (such as adjacent speed limiting points with the same speed limiting effect) on the physical link are treated as one speed limiting point, so that the complexity of the obtained physical link can be reduced, and the management efficiency of the physical link can be improved.

The back plane 2 in fig. 1 has a connector, the board 2 has a connector and a null, the receiving end network element 102 has an ethernet interface, and the slave device 2 has an ethernet interface and a null. Fig. 1 assumes that these physical interfaces and communication interfaces do not have a rate limiting effect on the slice messages sent by the sending network element, i.e. are not rate limiting points for the slice messages. These physical and communication interfaces are not shown in fig. 1. However, in actual implementation, there may be a speed limit point on the physical link, whether the side where the sending end network element is located or the side where the receiving end network element is located, which is not limited in the embodiment of the present application.

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

1. number of overhead bits added by the speed limit point: during the transmission process of each slice message, each speed limiting point adds some overhead bits to the slice message, different speed limiting points and different numbers of the added overhead bits. The same rate limiting point, the same number of overhead bits are added.

2. Bandwidth of the speed limit point.

3. The length of slice message: the length of the slice messages may be different for different slice scenarios, e.g., the slice messages may be 64 bytes or 1518 bytes in length, etc. For messages with different lengths, the speed limit point needs to add overhead bits to the slice message, so that 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 the data actually carried by the message. The payload of the slice message passing through a speed limit point in unit time is called a 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 message, the larger its maximum payload bandwidth, and the higher the benefit of the slice message transmission.

In the related art, the above three factors are considered, and in order to ensure that slice messages with different lengths can pass through the speed limit point, the bandwidth for limiting the speed of the member link is generally determined by considering the worst transmission condition. The bandwidth of the member link is determined in the related art as follows: for each member link, a worker determines the speed limit bandwidth of each speed limit point based on the bandwidth of each speed limit point on the member link, overhead bits, the minimum length of a slice message passing through the speed limit point, the bandwidth of an adjacent speed limit point and the like; and determining the minimum value in the speed limiting bandwidth of each speed limiting point as the bandwidth of the member link. The process of obtaining the speed limiting bandwidth of each speed limiting point is complex, and the labor cost is high. This results in a complex acquisition process of the bandwidth for speed limitation and lower acquisition efficiency.

Fig. 3 is a flow chart of 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 bandwidth obtaining process for speed reduction and improve the bandwidth obtaining efficiency for speed reduction. In the communication method provided by the embodiment of the application, for each of the plurality of physical links (i.e., the aggregated links) bundled by PLA, the processing action executed by the sending end network element is the same. In the following, an example of one physical link will be described, and processing actions for other physical links refer to processing actions for the one physical link. As shown in fig. 3, the method includes the following steps.

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

In the embodiment of the application, the sending end network element can acquire 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, the sending end network element receives the speed limit point information reported by the monitoring device. The monitoring equipment corresponds to at least one physical link in the aggregation link and is used for monitoring speed limit point information of the speed limit point on the corresponding physical link. The process of receiving the speed limit point information reported by the monitoring equipment by the network element at the transmitting end comprises the following steps: the monitoring equipment sends monitoring information to a network element at a sending end, wherein the monitoring information comprises speed limit point information of speed limit points monitored by the monitoring equipment on corresponding physical links; correspondingly, the transmitting terminal equipment receives the monitoring information transmitted by the monitoring equipment. Optionally, the monitoring information further includes an information identification. The information identifier is used for uniquely identifying monitoring information, and is used for distinguishing the monitoring information from other control information transmitted in the network element at the transmitting end. The monitoring information may further include a priority, and the monitoring device may determine a sequence of transmitting the monitoring information according to the priority of the monitoring information. The priority of the monitoring information is illustratively the highest priority of the communication system.

In an alternative example, each physical link in the aggregate 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 transmits monitoring information to a transmitting end network element; correspondingly, the network element at the transmitting end receives the monitoring information sent by the monitoring equipment on each physical link. The hardware device is a device capable of sending information to a sending network element, and may be a back plane, a single board, a slave device, or other structures. The embodiment of the present application will be 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 back plane 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 the speed limit point located on the any monitoring device, the monitoring information sent by the backboard 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 points B, C and C2; the monitoring information transmitted from the apparatus 1 includes: speed limit point information of speed limit points E and F. When the speed limit point monitored by any monitoring device on the corresponding physical link includes the speed limit point connected with any monitoring device, the monitoring information sent by the back plate 1 may include: speed limit point information of speed limit points B, C 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 apparatus 1 includes: and the speed limiting point information of the speed limiting point D. When 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 the speed limit point connected with any monitoring device, the monitoring information sent by the backboard 1 includes: speed limit point information of speed limit points A, B, C and C2; the monitoring information sent by the board 1 includes: speed limit point information of speed limit points A, B, C and C2; the monitoring information transmitted from the apparatus 1 includes: speed limit point D, E and speed limit point information of F.

In the second case, the 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 speed limit points on the physical link.

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

It should be noted that, one physical link includes a sender link, where the sender link is a link between a first speed limit point (e.g. a physical interface) and a last speed limit point (e.g. an air interface) determined along a direction away from a sender network element, and since the sender link is closer to the sender network element, and a hardware device other than the sender link is farther from the sender network element, a specified hardware device (i.e. a monitoring device) may be disposed on the sender link. When the appointed hardware device is the hardware device on the transmitting end link, the monitoring information can be rapidly reported, and the transmission delay of the monitoring information is reduced.

In the foregoing first alternative example, the monitoring device is a structure having a communication function, which is capable of transmitting information to the transmitting-end network element. Since the conventional back panel does not have a communication function, if the back panel needs to be configured as a monitoring device, the back panel is an intelligent back panel having a communication function.

In another alternative example, the monitoring device is located outside the aggregation link and is configured to monitor 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 hardware device on the monitored physical link, and sends the collected speed limit point information to the sender device.

In a second implementation manner, the sending end network element obtains the speed limit point information through a manual configuration manner. The process of receiving the speed limit point information reported by the monitoring equipment by the network element at the transmitting end comprises the following steps: 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 alternative example, the transmitting network element has or is connected to an input device, through which the user inputs a bandwidth setting instruction, and the transmitting network element receives the bandwidth setting instruction accordingly. The bandwidth setting instruction includes speed limit point information of one or more speed limit points that a user can acquire. The speed limit point information is typically speed limit point information of a speed limit point with a fixed bandwidth. Thus, the user generally only needs to set the speed limit point information once, and user operation is reduced.

It should be noted that the first speed limit point on the physical link is usually the physical interface of the sending network element, such as the connector a of the back plane 1 on the sending network element shown in fig. 1, and the ethernet interface D of the sending 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 speed limit point information of the first speed limit point configured manually, the sending end network element can also directly acquire the speed limit point information of the physical interface of the sending end network element.

In practical implementation, the foregoing first implementation manner and the second implementation manner may be performed in combination. For example, the speed limit point information acquired by the network element at the transmitting end 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 transmitting end may have repeated situations. 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 the speed limit point located on any monitoring device and the 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. In the case of combining the foregoing first implementation manner and the second implementation manner, there may be a case where the speed limit point information reported by the monitoring device and the manually set speed limit point information are repeated for the same speed limit point. In this case, 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 a plurality of speed limit point information are received, the latest speed limit point information (namely, the speed limit point information with the set time or the sending time closest to the current moment) in the plurality of speed limit point information is obtained as the speed limit point information after duplicate removal, so that timeliness and effectiveness of the speed limit point information can be ensured.

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

As previously described, since the slice messages that each speed limit point is allowed to pass through are also affected by the number of overhead bits that the speed limit point adds, the speed limit process also needs to consider the number of overhead bits that the speed limit point adds. And for each of the plurality of speed limit points, the transmitting-end network element can control the passing speed of the slice message to be passed through the speed limit point to be smaller than the threshold bandwidth of the speed limit point by taking the difference between the bandwidth of the speed limit point and the bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number as the threshold bandwidth. The bandwidth corresponding to the overhead bit number is the product of the overhead bit number and the preset message transmission rate.

In the embodiment of the application, the sending end network element can firstly determine the connection relation of each speed limiting point on the physical link, and then limit the speed based on the connection relation. The process of limiting the speed of the slice message transmitted on the physical link based on the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link may include:

B1, the network element at the transmitting end acquires the hooking relation information, wherein the hooking relation information is used for describing the connection relation of each speed limiting point on the physical link.

After the sending end network element acquires the speed limiting point information of the plurality of speed limiting points, a hooking relation diagram is established based on the acquired speed limiting point information. The speed limiting point information can also comprise an identification of the speed limiting point and a speed limiting point type, and the identification of the speed limiting point can comprise an identification of equipment where the speed limiting point is located and/or a number of the speed limiting point. The identification of the device may include: internet protocol (Internet Protocol, IP) address and/or Network Element Identification (NEID). The hooking relation information is established based on the identification of each speed limit point on the physical link and the speed limit point type of each speed limit point. The hooking relationship information may be characterized by a relationship graph or a relationship table.

The speed limiting point type comprises a main road speed limiting point or a branch road speed limiting point. And assuming that one physical link comprises m member links, m is a positive integer, the main road speed limiting point is a speed limiting point through which the m member links pass together, and the branch road speed limiting point is a speed limiting point through which the m member links pass respectively. Taking fig. 1 as an example, for a physical link 1031 that includes 2 member links, assuming that the 2 member links are a first member link that passes through speed limit points A, B and C1, respectively, and a second member link that passes through speed limit points A, B and C2, respectively, the main road speed limit point is speed limit points a and B, and the branch road speed limit point is speed limit point C1 that the first member link passes through, and speed limit point C2 that the second member link passes through, respectively.

Fig. 4 is a schematic diagram of a hooking relationship according to an embodiment of the present application. The hooking 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 configured to record an identifier X1 of a speed limit point with a speed limit point type being a branch speed limit point on a corresponding member link, where the number of identifiers of speed limit points recorded on different first branches X may be the same or different. The second branch Y is used for recording an identification Y1 of a speed limit point with the speed limit point type on the physical link as the speed limit point of the main road. The second branch Y is located behind the first branch X, so that when the speed limit is performed based on the hooking relation diagram later, the speed limit is performed based on the first branch, then the speed limit is performed based on the second branch, and finally the slice message with the speed limit completed is output from the network element at the transmitting end.

Fig. 5 is a schematic diagram of hooking information of the 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 points A, B and C1, and a second member link that passes through speed limit points A, B and C2, respectively. The corresponding hooking relation information includes: 2 first branches corresponding to 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 the first branches X1 and X2, respectively, the first branch X1 is used for recording the identifier C1 of the speed limit point on the first member link, the first branch X2 is used for recording the identifier C2 of the speed limit point on the second member link, and the second branch Y is used for recording the identifiers a and B of the speed limit point with the speed limit point type on the physical link being the main road speed limit point.

In another alternative, for each of the first and second branches, the identification of the speed limit points on that branch may be arranged according to a preset rule. For example, when the transmitting network element limits the speed of the slice message in the network element, the actual speed limiting effect is not only influenced by the bandwidth of the speed limiting point, but also influenced by the overhead bit number of the speed limiting point, so that the arrangement of the identifications of the speed limiting points in the branches can be performed based on the overhead bit number of the speed limiting points and the bandwidth. The identification of the speed limit point on the branch satisfies at least one of the following:

in the first case, when the bandwidths of the two speed limiting points are the same and the cost bit numbers are different, the identifications of the two speed limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence from the large to the small corresponding cost bit numbers. Since 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 by the speed limit point, and the larger the number of the added overhead bits is, the larger the limit on the transmission rate of the slice message is. Therefore, when the bandwidths of the two speed limit points are the same and the cost bit numbers are different, the identification of the corresponding speed limit point with the larger cost bit number is arranged in the front. When the speed is limited, the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of the previous speed limiting point are preferentially adopted to limit the speed, so that when the speed-limited slice message reaches the next speed limiting point, the speed limiting requirement of the next speed limiting point is met, and the passing time delay of the slice message at the next speed limiting point is reduced.

In the second case, when the number of overhead bits of the two speed limit points is the same and the bandwidths are different, the identifications of the two speed limit points are arranged in the branch according to the order of the bandwidths from small to large. Since the length of the slice message passing through the speed limiting point is unchanged and the overhead bit number of the speed limiting point is unchanged, the actual speed limiting effect of the speed limiting point is determined by the bandwidth of the speed limiting point, and the smaller the bandwidth is, the larger 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 identifications of the speed limit points with smaller bandwidths are arranged in the front. When the speed is limited, the bandwidth and the overhead bit number of the previous speed limiting point are preferentially adopted to limit the speed, so that when the speed-limited slice message reaches the next speed limiting point, the speed limiting requirement of the next speed limiting point is met, and the passing time delay of the slice message at the next speed limiting point is reduced.

In actual implementation, for each of the first branch and the second branch, the identification of the speed limit point recorded by the branch can be integrated, and the identification of one speed limit point in the speed limit points needing to be integrated is reserved. Thus, the number of the identifications of the speed limit points recorded by each first branch is smaller than or equal to the total number of the identifications of the speed limit points with the speed limit point type of the branch speed limit point on the corresponding member link; the number of the identifications of the speed limiting points recorded by the second branch is smaller than or equal to the total number of the identifications of the speed limiting points with the speed limiting point type on the physical link as the speed limiting point of the main road. For example, when the transmitting network element limits the speed of the slice message in the network element, the actual speed limiting effect is not only influenced by the bandwidth of the speed limiting point, but also by the overhead bit number of the speed limiting point. The integration of the identification of the speed limit point in the branch can thus be made based on the number of overhead bits of the speed limit point and the bandwidth. The identification of the integrated speed limit point mainly comprises the following three types:

the first category is the identification of two speed limiting points with the same overhead bit number and the same bandwidth. For the branch recorded with the identifications of the two speed limiting points, the identifications of the two speed limiting points are integrated into the identification of one speed limiting point, so that the updated branch is finally obtained because the actual speed limiting effect of the two speed limiting points is the same. The same effect of limiting speed based on branches before updating can be achieved by limiting speed based on the branches. But the number of the identifications of the speed limit points of the updated branch records is smaller, and the complexity is lower. Illustratively, the integration process includes: 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 the same, deleting the identification of one speed limit point in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch.

And secondly, identifying two speed limiting points with the same overhead bit number and different bandwidths. For the branch recorded with the identifications of the two speed limiting points, the effective speed limiting can be realized by the speed limiting point with small bandwidth relative to the speed limiting point with large bandwidth, so that the identifications of the speed limiting points with small bandwidth can be reserved, and finally the updated branch is obtained. The same effect of limiting speed based on branches before updating can be achieved by limiting speed based on the branches. But the number of the identifications of the speed limit points of the updated branch records is smaller, and the complexity is lower. Illustratively, the integration process includes: and for each 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 mark of the speed limit point with the larger bandwidth in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain the updated branch.

And thirdly, identifying two speed limiting points with different overhead bit numbers and same bandwidth. For the branch recorded with the identifications of the two speed limiting points, the effective speed limiting can be realized by the speed limiting point with the large cost bit relative to the speed limiting point with the small cost bit, so that the identification of the speed limiting point with the small cost bit can be reserved, and the updated branch is finally obtained. The same effect of limiting speed based on branches before updating can be achieved by limiting speed based on the branches. But the number of the identifications of the speed limit points of the updated branch records is smaller, and the complexity is lower. Illustratively, the integration process includes: and for each of the first branch and the second branch, when the cost 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 cost bit number in the two speed limit points recorded in the branch to obtain the 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 speed limit point information further includes an overhead bit number. Therefore, the network element at the transmitting end can arrange and/or integrate the identification of the speed limit points on the branches through the overhead bit number and the bandwidth in the acquired speed limit point information.

And B2, the network element at the transmitting end carries out multistage 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 hooking relation information based on the bandwidths of a plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link.

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

If the hooking relation information of the physical link is shown in fig. 5, for a slice message to be transmitted on the physical link, if the slice message is a slice message to be transmitted through the first member link, sequentially limiting the slice message by adopting 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 be passed through the second member link, the slice message is sequentially speed-limited by adopting the bandwidth of the speed limiting point C2, the bandwidth of the speed limiting point A and the bandwidth of the speed limiting point B.

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

In the embodiment of the present application, the following two alternative ways may be used to perform specific speed limiting of the slice packet. In a first alternative manner, the sending end network element establishes a correspondence between the identification of the speed limit point and the bandwidth based on the obtained speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link, and stores the correspondence in a preset storage space. When multi-stage speed limiting is carried out, after traversing the mark of one speed limiting point in the hooking relation information, adopting the mark to inquire the corresponding relation between the mark of the speed limiting point and the bandwidth, and carrying out the speed limiting of the slice message based on the bandwidth obtained by inquiry. Because the corresponding relation is additionally stored in a preset storage space, the corresponding relation is convenient to update in time after the speed limit point information is updated, and the reliability of speed limit is ensured. In a second alternative manner, the hooking relation information records the identifications of the limited points and the bandwidths corresponding to the identifications of each limited point. When multi-stage speed limiting is carried out, after traversing the mark of one speed limiting point in the hooking relation information, adopting the bandwidth corresponding to the mark to limit the speed of the slice message. Because the identification corresponding to the speed limiting point is directly recorded in the hooking relation information, the bandwidth inquiry corresponding to the identification of the speed limiting point is not required in the speed limiting process, the complexity of the speed limiting process is reduced, and the speed limiting time delay is reduced.

In the embodiment of the application, the transmitting end network element can realize multistage speed limiting of the slice message in a hardware speed limiting or software speed limiting mode.

First, hardware speed limiting mode:

for each physical link, a preset number of hardware speed limiters are pre-configured in a sending end network element. The speed limiter is a speed limiting circuit or a speed limiting chip, and the preset number is generally greater than or equal to the total number of speed limiting points of the physical link. After acquiring the hooking relation information, the transmitting end network element selects a plurality of speed limiters from a preset number of speed limiters according to the arrangement sequence of the identifiers of all the speed limiting points in the hooking relation information, and establishes a connection network of the plurality of speed limiters. The speed limiters are in one-to-one correspondence with the identifications of the speed limiting points in the hooking relation information. This process of establishing a connected network of speed limit points is called hooking. After the connection is completed, the inlets of the connecting networks of the speed limiters are connected with the output end of the slicing module in the network element at the transmitting end, and the outlets of the connecting networks are connected with the physical port of the network element at the transmitting end, which is used for outputting slicing messages 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 a slice 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 slice message in unit time can be represented by the product of the length of the slice message and the preset message transmission rate. As described above, since the slice message allowed to pass through by 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 condition of the corresponding speed limit point to perform speed limit. 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 a 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 the preset message transmission rate.

Fig. 6 is a schematic diagram of a connection network of the speed limiter corresponding to the hooking relation information of the physical link shown in fig. 5. As shown in fig. 6, after acquiring the hooking relation information, the transmitting network element establishes a connection network of 4 speed limiters according to the arrangement sequence of the identifications of the speed limiting points in the hooking relation information. The 4 speed limiters are speed limiters 1-4 respectively. The 4 speed limiters are respectively in one-to-one correspondence with the identifications C1, C2, A and B of the 4 speed limiting points in the hooking relation information. The speed limiters 1 and 2 corresponding to the speed limit points C1 and C2 are connected to the speed limiter 3 corresponding to the speed limit point a, and the speed limiter 3 is also connected to the speed limiter 4 corresponding to the speed limit point B. Wherein, the speed limiters 1 and 2 are inlets of a connection network, and the speed limiter 4 is an outlet of the connection network.

Second, software speed limiting mode:

for each physical link, after acquiring the hooking relation information, the sending end network element allocates the speed limiters of a plurality of software (namely allocates the resources for speed limitation of the plurality of software) according to the arrangement sequence of the identifications of the speed limiting points in the hooking relation information, and establishes a connection network of the plurality of speed limiters. The speed limiters are in one-to-one correspondence with the identifications of the speed limiting points in the hooking relation information. This process of establishing a connected network of speed limit points is called hooking. The connection network of the software speed limiter after the connection is completed is consistent with the connection network of the speed limiter of the hardware, and the connection mode and the function of each speed limiter correspond to those 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 hooking relationship information includes multiple 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 of the multiple first branches and one second branch, and the scheduler is used to schedule slice packets from corresponding speed limiters of different first branches, so as to prevent congestion of the slice packets. Illustratively, the aforementioned scheduler is a Round Robin (RR) scheduler.

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

The speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points may change due to environmental changes or changes in other factors. For example, the speed limit point is an empty port, and the bandwidth of the speed limit point is changed due to environmental changes, such as weather changes. For another example, after the hardware device where a certain speed limit point is located fails, the hardware device is replaced. Thereby causing the update of the certain speed limit point, and corresponding speed limit point information, such as the bandwidth and the identification of the speed limit point, also changes. The sending end network element needs to acquire the changed speed limiting point information so as to ensure the speed limiting effect.

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

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

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

When any speed limiting point information in a plurality of speed limiting points changes, the sending end network element acquires the speed limiting point information of any speed limiting point. Therefore, the real-time acquisition of the changed speed limit point information by the network element of the transmitting end can be ensured, and the speed limit is timely and accurate.

In the second mode, the sending end network element periodically acquires speed limiting point information of a plurality of speed limiting points.

In each acquisition period, the process of the transmitting end network element acquiring the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points may refer to the process of the transmitting end network element acquiring the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link in S301. For example, the speed limiting point information of the plurality of speed limiting points reported by the monitoring equipment is received, or the speed limiting point information of the plurality of speed limiting points is obtained in a manual configuration mode.

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

The process of limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link by the sending network element based on the updated bandwidths of the plurality of speed limiting points may refer to the speed limiting process in S302.

With reference to the foregoing step B2, if the sending end network element establishes a correspondence between the identifiers of the speed limit points and the bandwidths, the sending end network element updates the correspondence between the identifiers of the speed limit points and the bandwidths based on the updated speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points; and inquiring the bandwidths of the updated plurality of speed limit points based on the updated corresponding relation so as to limit the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link.

If the hooking relation information records the identifications of the speed limit points and the bandwidths corresponding to the identifications of the speed limit points, the sending end network element updates the hooking relation information based on the updated speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points; and then limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the updated hooking relation information.

In the related art, for a member link, a sending end network element needs to perform one-time speed limiting of a slice message, and the bandwidth used for speed limiting is a fixed bandwidth. That is, after the staff sets the bandwidth, the bandwidth is not changed. This results in less flexibility in bandwidth for speed limiting.

In this embodiment of the present application, the sending network element may update the speed limit point information of at least one speed limit point in the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link, for example, periodically update or update the speed limit point information in real time. As such, the multiple bandwidths used for speed limiting 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 transmitting end network element transmits the slice message after speed limiting to a physical link.

In this embodiment of the present application, after the sending end network element performs multi-level speed limiting, as in S302 or S304 described above, the sending end network element outputs the multi-level speed limiting to the physical link through the physical interface on the sending end network element. At this time, the slice message passing through the physical link is transmitted on the basis of guaranteeing the maximum payload bandwidth of the slice message as much as possible, thereby improving the bandwidth utilization rate.

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 includes the steps of:

and C1, the network element at the transmitting end receives bandwidth prediction information transmitted by the prediction equipment.

The prediction device corresponds to at least one physical link of the plurality of physical links, and is configured to predict a changed bandwidth of the speed limit point monitored on the corresponding physical link. The setting manner of the prediction device may be the same as or similar to the setting manner of the monitoring device in S301. For example, each physical link in the aggregated link includes at least one hardware device that includes the predictive device described above. 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 predictive device, and the speed limit points monitored by the predictive 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 limit point is preconfigured in the prediction device. And after monitoring that a certain speed limit point meets the 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 the network element at the sending end. The predicted bandwidth is the bandwidth after the predicted speed limit point changes after the predicted device determines that the speed limit point monitored on the corresponding physical link meets the bandwidth change condition.

Illustratively, the bandwidth change condition is: the environment where the speed limiting point is located starts to generate preset change, or the environment where the speed limiting point is located generates preset change after preset duration; or the bandwidth of the speed limit point is reset after a preset time period, etc. When the speed limiting point is an empty port, the preset change includes: temperature change with a change amplitude larger than a preset temperature difference, and/or humidity change with a change amplitude larger than a preset humidity difference, etc.

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

In the embodiment of the application, after the prediction device monitors that a certain speed limit point meets the bandwidth change condition, the bandwidth after the change of the certain speed limit point can be predicted in various modes. For example, if the bandwidth change condition is: the environment where the speed limiting point is located starts to generate preset change, or the environment where the speed limiting point is located generates preset change after preset duration; the prediction device determines the bandwidth after the change according to the change relation between the environment (such as temperature and/or humidity) and the bandwidth. If the bandwidth change condition is: the bandwidth of the speed limiting point is reset after a preset time length, and the prediction equipment acquires the reset bandwidth in advance as a prediction bandwidth.

And C2, the network element at the transmitting end limits the speed of the slice message to be passed through 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 be passed through a certain speed limit point in the slice packet transmitted on the physical link by the transmitting end network element based on the predicted bandwidth may refer to the speed limiting process in S302.

And B2, if the sending end network element establishes a corresponding relation between the identification of the limited speed point and the bandwidth. The sending end network element updates the corresponding relation between the identification of the speed limiting point and the bandwidth based on the speed limiting bandwidth; and inquiring to obtain bandwidths of a plurality of speed limit points based on the updated corresponding relation so as to limit the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link. The bandwidth of the plurality of speed limit points obtained by inquiry 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.

If the hooking relation information records the identifications of the speed limiting points and the bandwidths corresponding to the identifications of the speed limiting points, the sending end network element updates the hooking relation information based on the speed limiting bandwidths; and then limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link based on the updated hooking relation information. The hooking relation information comprises the prediction 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 bandwidth obtained by converting the minimum length of the slice message passing through the member link is used to determine the upper limit bandwidth, so that the actual payload bandwidth of the longer slice message passing through the member link (i.e. the payload of the slice message actually passing through a speed limit point in unit time) is far smaller than the maximum payload bandwidth thereof. Such that the payload of a longer length slice message (i.e., a slice message having a length greater than the minimum length) passing through in a unit time length is less than the length of the slice message (the ratio is referred to as the passing rate), so that the communication loss of the longer length slice message in the member link is greater (e.g., up to 30% or more).

In the embodiment of the application, the transmitting end network element directly adopts the bandwidth of each speed limiting point and the cost bit number to limit the speed of the slice messages with different lengths. Therefore, for slice messages with different lengths, the slice messages can pass through under the condition of ensuring the maximum payload bandwidth or approaching the maximum payload bandwidth as much as possible, so that the communication loss is reduced.

However, if the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message 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 transmitting end network element, congestion phenomenon is easy to occur when the bandwidth of the speed limiting point and the overhead bit number are adopted to limit speed. Severe congestion can result in loss of slice messages, creating the possibility of random packet loss.

In the embodiment of the application, the sending end network element reduces congestion phenomenon by carrying out flow monitoring, thereby avoiding random packet loss. Illustratively, the sending end network element in the embodiments of the present application also supports a manner of flow control back pressure. The flow control back pressure refers to realizing the flow control of the slice message in a feedback mode. In this embodiment of the present application, the process of flow control back pressure includes:

for each speed limit point recorded by the hooking relation information, when the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to be passed 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 be passed 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 slice message. 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+h2); wherein w is 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, v is the 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 identical, or the units after conversion are identical.

Referring to S302, when the speed is limited by the hardware speed limiting method or the software speed limiting method, the entry of the connection network of the plurality of speed limiters is connected to the slice module. The first speed limiter is assumed to be any one of the plurality of speed limiters, and the first speed limiter is the speed limiter 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 slice message and the overhead bit number of the first speed limit point is detected to be larger than the bandwidth of the first speed limit point, in a first alternative mode, the first speed limiter feeds back pressure information to the upstream of the first speed limiter (if the first speed limiter is an inlet of a connecting network of a plurality of speed limiters, the first speed limiter feeds back the back pressure information to the slice module, if the first speed limiter is not an inlet of a connecting network of a plurality of speed limiters, the first speed limiter feeds back the back pressure information to the primary speed limiter), and the back pressure information is used for indicating that 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 back pressure information is fed back forward by each speed limiter according to the reverse sequence of the arrangement sequence of the marks of the speed limiting points in the hooking relation information until the back pressure information reaches the slicing module; the slicing module discards the service messages to be sliced, so that the number of slicing messages sent out in unit time length is reduced, namely the message flow is reduced, and 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 limiting point is reduced.

As shown in fig. 6, it is assumed that the first speed limiter is a speed limiter 4, which is toward the upper stage speed limiter of the speed limiter 4: the speed limiter 3 transmits back pressure information, and the speed limiter 3 transmits back pressure information to the speed limiter of the upper stage of the speed limiter 3: 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 back pressure information to the slicing module.

In a second alternative, a plurality of speed limiters are also respectively connected with the slicing module. When the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message and the overhead bit number of the first speed limiting point is detected to be larger than the bandwidth of the first speed limiting point, the first speed limiter feeds back pressure information to the slice module. Compared with the first alternative mode, in the mode, the time delay from the first speed limiter to the slicing module is smaller, and the rapid adjustment of the message flow can be realized. But the connection relationship inside the network element of the transmitting end is complex, and the management cost is high.

In the embodiment of the application, the sending end network element can determine the number of the discarded service messages according to the congestion condition of the first speed limiter. The more severe the congestion situation, the greater the number of dropped traffic messages. Illustratively, the backpressure information includes a congestion level that is used to reflect the severity of the condition of congestion. The first speed limiter can make a difference between the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message and the overhead bit number of the first speed limiting point and the bandwidth of the first speed limiting point, and the obtained target difference value is adopted to inquire the corresponding relation between the preset congestion level and the difference value range. And carrying the congestion level corresponding to the difference range where the target difference value is located in the back pressure information. And the sending end network element inquires the corresponding relation between the congestion level and the discarding number based on the congestion level in the received back pressure information, obtains the target discarding number and discards the service message of the target discarding number. The service message carries priority, and the sending end network element discards the service message according to the order of the priority from low to high, so that the discarding of the service message with high priority is reduced as much as possible on the premise of ensuring congestion reduction.

The sending end network element performs flow control by directly discarding the service message, so that random packet loss caused by the 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 transmitting end adopts a flow control back pressure mode, so that slice messages with various lengths can be transmitted at best, and the transmission efficiency of the slice messages is effectively improved.

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

It should be noted that, the sequence of the steps of the communication method provided in the embodiment of the present application may be appropriately adjusted, the steps may also be correspondingly increased or decreased according to the situation, and any method that is easily conceivable to be changed by those skilled in the art within the technical scope of the present application should be covered within the protection scope of the present application, so that no further description is provided. In addition, the beneficial effects of the device embodiment and the beneficial effects of the corresponding steps of the method are similar, 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 transmitting end network element, and the device 40 comprises a first acquisition module 401 and a first speed limiting module 402. The first obtaining module 401 is configured to obtain, for each of a plurality of physical links bundled by PLA, speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link. The speed limit point information includes a bandwidth. The first speed limiting module 402 is configured to limit a speed of a slice packet to be transmitted on the physical link based on bandwidths of a plurality of speed limiting 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 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.

Optionally, each physical link in the plurality of physical links includes at least one hardware device, a hardware device where a 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 with 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 alternative implementation, 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 acquisition module 403. The second obtaining module 403 is configured to: when any speed limit point information in a plurality of speed limit points changes, acquiring the speed limit point information of any speed limit point; and/or periodically acquiring the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points.

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

In an alternative implementation, the first speed limit module 402 in the communication device 40 may limit the speed based on the hooking relationship information. Illustratively, a first speed limit module 402 for: and acquiring hooking relation information, wherein the hooking relation information is used for describing the connection relation of each speed limiting point on the physical link. The hooking relation information is established based on the identification of each speed limit point on the physical link and the speed limit point type of each speed limit point. And carrying out multistage 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 hooking relation information based on the bandwidths of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link.

Optionally, as shown in fig. 7, the apparatus 40 further includes: and a processing module 406, configured to record each speed limit point of the hooking relationship information. When the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to be passed through the speed limit point and the cost 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 be passed through the speed limit point and the cost bit number of the speed limit point is reduced by discarding the service message. The service message is used for slicing to obtain a slice message.

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

In an alternative example, the information included in the hooking relation information of the physical link refers to the description shown in fig. 4, that is, the first branch and the second branch, which are not described herein. For example, 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 cost bit numbers are different, the identifications of the two speed limiting points are arranged in the branch according to the sequence from the large to the small corresponding cost bit numbers; 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 from small to large of the corresponding bandwidths.

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

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: the processing chip 501 includes a processing circuit 5011 and a communication interface 5012. The processing circuit is used for the communication method executed by the transmitting end in the foregoing embodiments of the present application. The processing circuitry 5011 may be a processing chip or a field programmable gate array (Field Programmable Gate Array, FPGA). The processing chip may be an integrated circuit (Application Specific 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 network element through an aggregation link. The communication interface 5012 includes an input interface and an output interface. The communication interface 5012 may 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 circuitry 5011 includes a cache structure, such as a memory structure internal to an FPGA or ASIC chip, for caching speed limit point information. In another alternative implementation, the communication device 50 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 application provides a communication system, which includes a transmitting end network element, a receiving end network element and a plurality of physical links bundled by PLA, where the transmitting end network element includes a communication device, such as a communication device 40 or a communication device 50, provided in the embodiment of the application. The structure of the communication system may 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, referring to a 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 the communication method is executed, only the division of the above functional modules is used as an example, and in practical application, the above functional allocation may be performed by different functional modules according to needs, that is, the internal structure of the device is divided into different functional modules, so as to complete all or part of the functions described above. In addition, the communication device and the communication method provided in the foregoing embodiments belong to the same concept, and specific implementation processes of the communication device and the communication method are detailed 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 for instructing relevant hardware, where the program may be stored in a computer readable storage medium, and the storage medium may be a read-only memory, a magnetic disk or an optical disk, etc.

The foregoing description of the preferred embodiments is merely exemplary in nature and is in no way intended to limit the invention, since it is intended that all modifications, equivalents, improvements, etc. that fall within the spirit and scope of the invention.

Claims

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

for each physical link in a plurality of physical links bundled by 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 according to the connection relation of each speed limiting point in the hooking relation information based on the bandwidths of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link, wherein the hooking relation information is used for describing the connection relation of each speed limiting point on the physical link, and the hooking relation information is established based on the identification of each speed limiting point on the physical link and the speed limiting point type of each speed limiting point.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises: when any speed limiting point information in the plurality of speed limiting points changes, acquiring the speed limiting point information of any speed limiting point; and/or periodically acquiring the speed limit point information of the plurality of speed limit points.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the obtaining speed limit point information for a plurality of speed limit points on the physical link comprises: and 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. A method according to claim 3, wherein each physical link in the plurality of physical links includes at least one hardware device, a hardware device in which a speed limit point in the at least one hardware device is located is the monitoring device, and a 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;

The receiving the monitoring information sent by the monitoring equipment comprises the following steps: and receiving 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 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 the plurality of physical links.

6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, 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 prediction bandwidth, and the prediction bandwidth is a bandwidth after the change of a certain speed limit point monitored by the prediction equipment on the corresponding physical link meets a bandwidth change condition;

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

7. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link according to the connection relationship of each speed limit point in the hooking relationship information based on the bandwidths of the plurality of speed limit points on the physical link includes:

Acquiring the hooking relation information;

and carrying out multistage 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 hooking relation information based on the bandwidths of the plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the method further comprises: and for each speed limit point recorded by the hooking relation information, when the bandwidth corresponding to the sum of the length of the slice message to be passed 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 be passed 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 of claim 8, wherein the physical links comprise m member links, m being a positive integer, the speed limit point information further comprising: the speed limiting point type comprises a main road speed limiting point or a branch road speed limiting point, wherein the main road speed limiting point is a speed limiting point through which the m member links pass together, and the branch road speed limiting point is a speed limiting point through which the m member links pass respectively.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the hooking 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;

each first branch is used for recording the identification of the speed limit point with the speed limit point type of the corresponding member link being the speed limit point of the branch, and each second branch is used for recording the identification of the speed limit point with the speed limit point type of the physical link being the speed limit point of the main link.

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

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

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 from the small bandwidth to the large bandwidth.

12. The method according to claim 10, wherein the method further comprises:

For each 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 mark 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 deleting the mark of the speed limiting point with smaller cost bit number in the two speed limiting points recorded in the branch to obtain an updated branch when the cost bit numbers of the two speed limiting points are different and the bandwidths are the same;

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

13. A communication device, for use in a transmitting network element, the device comprising:

the first acquisition module is used for acquiring speed limit point information of a plurality of speed limit points on each physical link in a plurality of physical links bundled by physical link aggregation PLA, wherein the speed limit point information comprises bandwidths;

the first speed limiting module is used for limiting the speed of 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 plurality of speed limiting points on the physical link, the hooking relation information is used for describing the connection relation of each speed limiting point on the physical link, and the hooking relation information is established based on the identification of each speed limiting point on the physical link and the speed limiting point type of each speed limiting point.

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

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

16. The apparatus of claim 15, wherein each physical link in the plurality of physical links includes at least one hardware device, a hardware device where a speed limit point in the at least one hardware device is the monitoring device, and a 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;

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

17. The apparatus of any one of claims 13 to 16, wherein the first acquisition 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 according to any one of claims 13 to 16, further comprising:

the receiving module is used for receiving bandwidth prediction information sent by prediction equipment, the prediction equipment corresponds to at least one physical link in the plurality of physical links, the bandwidth prediction information comprises a prediction bandwidth, and the prediction bandwidth is a 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 the second speed limiting module is used for limiting the speed of the slice message to be transmitted on the physical link and passing through any speed limiting point based on the predicted bandwidth.

19. The apparatus of any one of claims 13 to 16, wherein the first speed limiting module is configured to:

acquiring the hooking relation information;

20. The apparatus of claim 19, wherein the apparatus further comprises: 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 limiting point and the overhead bit number of the speed limiting 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 limiting point and the overhead bit number of the speed limiting point is larger than the bandwidth of the speed limiting point for each speed limiting point recorded by the hooking relation information, wherein the service message is used for slicing to obtain the slice message.

21. The apparatus of claim 20, wherein the physical links comprise m member links, m being a positive integer, the speed limit point information further comprising: the speed limiting point type comprises a main road speed limiting point or a branch road speed limiting point, wherein the main road speed limiting point is a speed limiting point through which the m member links pass together, and the branch road speed limiting point is a speed limiting point through which the m member links pass respectively.

22. The apparatus of claim 21, wherein the hooking 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 and second branches, the identification of a speed limit point on the branch satisfies at least one of:

24. The apparatus of claim 22, wherein the apparatus further comprises: a processing module for:

25. A communication device, the communication device comprising:

a processing chip, the processing chip comprising: processing circuitry and a communication interface, said processing circuitry for performing the communication method of any of claims 1 to 12;

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

26. A communication system comprising a sender network element, a receiver network element and a plurality of physical links bundled by physical link aggregation PLA, the sender network element comprising the communication device of any of claims 13 to 25.

27. A computer readable storage medium having stored therein computer instructions for instructing a computer device to perform the method of any one of claims 1 to 12.