JP2001069170A - Quality prediction value presentation network - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] [Problem] When a user performs communication, it is possible to present to the user the degree of quality and whether or not the level is acceptable without protocol overhead, and the user satisfies the target quality. We provide a quality prediction value communication network that allows service classes to be selected. A measuring device for measuring traffic and quality of a communication network in a communication network of which quality is not guaranteed for at least part of communication such as the Internet.
4, an evaluation device 115-118 for evaluating the quality of the communication network under predetermined reference conditions based on data measured by the measurement devices 111-114, and a quality of the communication network based on the evaluation result. And a network information system 120 for making predictions and presenting the prediction results to the user via the communication network.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a quality prediction value presenting communication network having means for presenting communication quality in a communication network, such as the Internet, in which at least some of the traffic is not guaranteed for quality.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the Internet, a service concept of a single service class, which is called a best-effort service and does not indicate the quality of a network that does its best, is mainstream. Therefore, it is a situation that each user cannot know how much communication can be performed without trying.

(1) On the other hand, one is to measure the actual quality and display it on the Internet homepage, such as “quality yesterday”, “performance characteristics in the past month”, etc., to give the user an approximate quality. There is an example that provides a guideline for.

(2) In addition, RSVP (Resource ReSerVa
Action Protocol) and ST2 (InternetStream protocol v
There are also attempts to guarantee the quality by introducing bandwidth reservation type protocols such as ersion 2) to the Internet, but these protocols are difficult to scale up, are heavy processing, and can be used when migrating from or mixing with existing systems. It is not popular because there is a problem of correspondence.

(3) Recently, IP (Internet Protocol)
l) A method of classifying IP datagrams into multiple quality classes using the TOS (service type) field and label field of the header is being studied. For each quality class, the router uses a WFQ (Weighted Fair Queue
ng), WRR (Weighed Round Robin), HOL (Head
The bandwidth to be given is changed according to processing rules such as of the line, or the buffer allocation is changed according to various buffer allocation rules. For example, in HOL, if there is a packet of a higher quality class, the packet is always transferred from the higher packet. In WFQ and WRR, packets are transmitted at a rate at which each class has a right to transmit packets. If this ratio is large, packets are more likely to be forwarded; otherwise, packets are more likely to remain in the buffer. The most common buffer allocation rules are class-specific fixed allocation and common buffer allocation. In fixed allocation by class, a certain amount of buffer is allocated for each class. If the allocation amount is increased, the packet loss due to buffer overflow decreases, and if the allocation amount is reduced, it increases. On the other hand, in the common buffer allocation, there is a certain amount of buffers common to all classes, and buffers of any quality class use this common buffer. As an intermediate allocation rule, the packets of each class can use the common buffer up to a certain amount freely, and when the amount exceeds the amount, the buffer allocation increases or decreases according to the buffer used in each class. It does. Depending on how this increase or decrease is made, it is possible to allocate more buffers for each class, or to allocate less buffers.

[0006]

In the above prior art, a user selects a service class that satisfies a target quality by referring to the quality and the acceptable level when performing a certain communication. Think about what you do. The prior art (1) is a past performance, which is not expected quality when communication is currently performed. Also, it is considered that the quality when the user tries to communicate at 10 Mbps and the quality when trying to communicate at 100 Kbps are different, for example, but the quality cannot be presented in correspondence to the traffic parameter of such communication. The prior art (2) involves a protocol overhead. In prior art (3), the relative priority of each quality class and the throughput of each quality class are known, but the quality of each communication is not known. For example, if there is a lot of traffic in the same quality class, the quality of the communication may deteriorate without limit.

According to the present invention, when a user performs a communication,
Provide a quality prediction value presentation communication network that can present to users the level of quality and whether it is at an acceptable level or not without protocol overhead, and allow the user to select a service class that satisfies the target quality. The purpose is to do.

[0008]

Means for Solving the Problems In order to solve the above problems, the invention according to claim 1 provides a communication network in which the quality is not guaranteed for at least a part of communication. A measuring means for measuring at least one of the quality; (2a) a data transmitting / receiving means for transmitting / receiving data to / from the measuring means; and (2b) a data transmitting / receiving means for receiving a predetermined reference condition based on data obtained by the data transmitting / receiving means. Evaluation means for evaluating the quality of the communication network and, if necessary, predicting the quality of the communication network; and (3) presentation means for presenting at least one of the evaluation result and the prediction result to a user of the communication network. It is characterized by having.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in a communication network in which quality is not guaranteed for at least a part of communication, (1) a plurality of measuring means for measuring at least one of traffic and quality of the communication network. And (2a) a plurality of first data transmitting / receiving means for transmitting / receiving data to / from each measuring means, and (2b) a part of the communication network based on data obtained by each first data transmitting / receiving means. On the other hand, a plurality of first evaluation means for evaluating the quality for a predetermined reference condition and for predicting the quality of a part of the communication network as necessary,
(5) storage means for storing network route information; (4a) second data transmission / reception means for transmitting / receiving data to / from each first evaluation means; and (4b) evaluation obtained by the second data transmission / reception means. Second evaluation means for evaluating the quality of the communication network based on the data and the route information of the network stored in the storage means, and for predicting the quality of the communication network if necessary; (3) It has a presentation means for presenting at least one of the evaluation result and the prediction result to the user of the communication network.

The invention according to claim 3 is characterized in that the presenting means presents a predicted quality value for each quality class when the communication network includes a plurality of quality classes. The invention according to claim 4 is characterized in that the communication network is the Internet. The invention according to claim 5 is characterized in that the presenting means presents by means of communication via www.

According to the above configuration, for example, the current traffic quality is measured, and the quality of each link is set to "1" by the evaluation means.
When traffic of Mbps is added ", it is possible to evaluate. In addition, this is combined with the route information to evaluate the quality of each ground,
It can be predicted.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a quality prediction value presentation communication network according to the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. This embodiment is described based on FIG. Figure 5
Shown in The network (in this example, the Internet) in FIG. 1 includes end hosts 101-106 and routers 107-110, and realizes communication between end hosts. In this case, the end hosts 101 and 102 and the routers 108 and 110 are connected to the router 107 via communication lines indicated by thick lines in the figure. Router 1
08, the end host 103, the router 107 and the router 109 are connected. Router 109 includes end hosts 104 and 105, router 108 and router 1
10 is connected. The end host 106, the router 107 and the router 109 are connected to the router 110.

The route server 119 is a server that determines the routing of the Internet shown in FIG. However, there is a case where there is no route server and each router autonomously determines a route. In this case, a route server is not necessary in the embodiment of the present invention, but route information is issued in advance or a command to the router is issued at regular intervals. It is desirable to be in place of the server.

On the links 121-124 between the routers, a measuring device 111-114 for measuring the traffic between the routers and an evaluator 115-114 for evaluating the delay and the loss at the link transmission section in each router based on the measurement results. There are 118.
In this case, the measuring device 111 measures traffic information of the link 121 between the routers 107 and 110, and transmits and receives data such as a measurement result to and from the evaluation device 115. Measuring instrument 1
12 measures the traffic information of the link 122 between the routers 107 and 108 and evaluates the data such as the measurement result by the evaluation device 1
16 is transmitted and received. The measuring device 113 is connected to the router 10.
It measures the traffic information of the link 123 between 8 and 109, and transmits and receives data such as the measurement result to and from the evaluation device 117. Then, the measuring device 114 is connected to the routers 109 and 11.
It measures the traffic information of the link 124 between 0 and transmits and receives data such as a measurement result to and from the evaluation device 118.

The measuring devices 111 to 114 are, for example, links 1
In the case where 21-124 is composed of an optical transmission line, an optical branching unit that branches an optical packet passing through each link, an optical branching optical packet is terminated, and the arrival time of a specific cell in the packet is detected. A detection unit, and a detection result evaluation device 11
It is composed of a data communication unit for sending to 5-118.
In this case, the evaluation devices 115-118 are composed of a central processing unit, a storage device, a data communication unit, and the like, and are based on a data string indicating the arrival time of each cell transmitted from each measuring device 111-114. Further, in consideration of the reference condition at the time of evaluation specified by the network information system 120, the arrival time of a packet or a large number of cells included in the packet, the cell loss rate in the large number of cells, and the like are estimated. For example, when the reference condition is to increase the traffic by 10 Mbps, in the evaluation device, in addition to the cell arrival time series based on the measured values, a 10 Mbps random number or the like is used.
The 10 Mbps traffic is obtained by adding the arrival time series of cells for s and inputting the result to a simulator such as a multiplexer, and as an output of the simulation, estimating a packet or a cell loss rate in a large number of cells included in the packet. It is possible to evaluate the quality when increasing.

These measuring instruments / evaluation devices obtain traffic information flowing through each link from each link,
Although it is assumed that measurement and evaluation are performed, the embodiment of the present invention is also applicable to a configuration including a measuring device such as a router that acquires and measures measurement data from a network device and an evaluation device that uses measurement data obtained by the measuring device. Can be implemented similarly.

Although the evaluation devices correspond to the measurement devices on a one-to-one basis, a configuration in which one evaluation device is used for a plurality of measurement devices is also possible. This is not mentioned below because it can be easily analogized.

The network information system 120 has a line with each of the evaluation devices 115-118 and the route server 119, and simultaneously displays results on the Internet by a www (world wide web) server function. The network information system 120 obtains and stores route information from the route server 119 (FIG. 2) (501).

FIG. 2 shows the network information system 120.
Shows an example of a route information table created and stored by. The route information table contains a set of data including the originating router number and its location name (origin name), the destination router number and its location name (landing name), and the relay router number (or data indicating the presence or absence). Multiple sets are included to correspond to the links. In this case, the router 107
Is located in Tokyo, the location of router 108 is Nagoya, and the location of router 109 is Osaka.

Network Information System System 120
Sets and stores some reference traffic conditions (502). An example of the reference traffic condition is “1 Mbps
"When 10% of traffic is added", "when 100 Poisson IP datagrams with a length of 100 KB per second are added on average" and so on. The network information system 120 notifies the evaluation devices 115-118 of the reference condition at the time of evaluation via a communication line (503).

The evaluation devices 115-118 receive and store the given reference conditions (504, 505). Measuring instrument 1
11-114 measures traffic and quality (506),
Send to the evaluation devices 115-118 (507). The evaluation device performs an evaluation (509) based on the received instantaneous measurement data (508), and notifies the network information system 120 of the "delay" and "loss" evaluation data at regular time intervals via a communication line. Do (510).

The network information system 120 receives and stores the evaluation data (511). Each time a predetermined data update condition is satisfied, a "delay",
The tendency of “loss” is extrapolated, and the predicted values of “delay” and “loss” for each link for the next one hour, for example, are calculated and stored in the quality predicted value table (FIG. 3) for each reference condition. Yes (5
12).

FIG. 3 shows the network information system 120.
An example of the form of the quality prediction value table created and stored by is shown. The quality prediction value table includes a router number, an output link name including data indicating the originating and destination routers with the router as the originating router, and a plurality of pairs of predicted values of delay and loss for each reference condition. . In the example shown in FIG. 3, for example, for the link (107-108) between the routers 107 and 108 having the router 107 as the originating side, the delay is 0.2 ms under the first reference traffic condition (reference condition 1). It is shown that the loss is 0.01%, the delay is 0.4 ms, and the loss is 0.02% under the second reference traffic condition (reference condition 2).

The network information system 120 creates a per-ground quality prediction value table (FIG. 4) from the quality prediction value table and the reference result (513) of the route information table (514) and publishes it on the Internet via www. (515). FIG. 4 shows an example of the form of the quality prediction value table for each ground when the information is created by the network information system 120 and made public on the World Wide Web. The quality prediction value table for each place includes a plurality of sets of quality values of the origin and destination, and the delay and loss values as a set of data. Reference conditions for quality prediction are also presented. In the example of FIG. 4, for example,
When the destination name is Tokyo and the destination name is Nagoya, it is shown that when the reference traffic condition is 1 Mbps traffic, the delay is 0.2 ms and the loss is 0.01%.

Normally, the delay and loss for each ground can be approximated by the sum of the delay and loss of the link on the route. This ground quality prediction value table is updated every fixed time, for example, every five minutes. When a quality class as in the prior art (3) is introduced in the router 107-110, the evaluation device 115
The -118 performs quality evaluation for each reference condition for each quality class. Therefore, the quality prediction value table of FIG. 3 is created for each quality class. As a result, the published quality prediction value table (FIG. 4) becomes the quality prediction value for each quality class corresponding to each reference condition.

In the above description, an example has been described in which the information to be made public is a table of quality prediction values. The information to be presented to the user includes past or current "delays" and " It is possible to make changes such as including the evaluation data of "loss". Further, in the quality prediction value presentation communication network of the present invention, for example, the network information system, the measuring device, and the evaluation device of FIG. 1 can be realized by a computer and its peripheral devices and a software program executed by the computer. Furthermore, the software program can be recorded on a computer-readable recording medium and distributed.

According to the above configuration, the user checks whether or not the communication to the communication destination and the quality are acceptable in the quality prediction value table of the reference condition close to the contents of the communication. Otherwise, you can decide to use another time zone or raise the quality class.

[0028]

According to the present invention, for example, when a user performs a certain communication, it is possible to indicate to the user the quality and the acceptable level without any protocol overhead. Therefore, the user can select the service class that satisfies the target quality.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of a quality prediction value presentation communication network according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram showing an example of a route information table stored in the network information system 120 of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of a quality prediction value table created and stored by the network information system 120 in FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a view showing an example of a quality prediction value table published by the network information system 120 shown in FIG.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing the operation of the quality prediction value presentation communication network of FIG. 1;

[Explanation of symbols]

101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106 End host 107, 108, 109, 110 Router 111, 112, 113, 114 Measuring instrument 115, 116, 117, 118 Evaluation device 119 Route server 120 Network information system 121, 122, 123, 124 link (communication line)

Claims (5)

[Claims] In a communication network in which quality is not guaranteed for at least a part of communication, (1) measuring means for measuring at least one of traffic and quality of the communication network;
(2a) data transmission / reception means for transmitting / receiving data to / from the measurement means, and (2b) evaluating the quality of the communication network against predetermined reference conditions based on data obtained by the data transmission / reception means, Quality prediction value presentation communication, comprising: evaluation means for predicting the quality of the communication network in response thereto; and (3) presentation means for presenting at least one of the evaluation result and the prediction result to a user of the communication network. network. 2. In a communication network in which quality is not guaranteed for at least a part of communication, (1) a plurality of measuring means for measuring at least one of traffic and quality of the communication network; and (2a) each measuring means. A plurality of first data transmission / reception means for transmitting / receiving data to / from a plurality of first data transmission / reception means, and (2b) a part of the communication network based on data obtained by each of the first data transmission / reception means with respect to a predetermined reference condition. A plurality of first evaluation means for evaluating the quality and, if necessary, predicting the quality of a part of the communication network; (5) a storage means for storing route information of the network; Second data transmission / reception means for transmitting / receiving data to / from the evaluation means, and (4)
b) Based on the evaluation data obtained by the second data transmission / reception means and the network route information stored in the storage means,
Second evaluation means for evaluating the quality of the communication network and, if necessary, predicting the quality of the communication network; and (3) presenting at least one of the evaluation result and the prediction result to a user of the communication network. A quality prediction presentation communication network characterized by having presentation means. 3. The quality prediction value presentation communication network according to claim 1, wherein said presentation means presents a quality prediction value for each quality class when said communication network includes a plurality of quality classes. A communication network for presenting quality prediction values. 4. The quality prediction value presentation communication network according to claim 1, wherein the communication network is the Internet. 5. The quality prediction value presenting communication network according to claim 1, wherein the presenting means is www.
Communication network for presenting quality prediction values, which is presented by communication via the Internet.