KR20060064486A - Method of performing flow-aware flow control, terminal equipment and network device - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention is provided with an agent capable of monitoring network traffic in an information terminal, and flow control flow control method for providing a desired network quality by transmitting and receiving appropriate flow control information with the network equipment using the data analyzed by the agent, An information terminal device and network equipment. The flow recognition flow control method includes monitoring network traffic between the information terminal and the network equipment in an agent provided to the information terminal connected to the network equipment, and the flow of packets requires quality of service (QoS) guarantee. Determining whether a service quality guarantee is required, and if the service quality guarantee is determined to be necessary, requesting the network equipment. As a result, according to the present invention, an agent may be provided to the information terminal device to effectively perform quality assurance. By taking advantage of the fact that information terminals such as PCs have higher computing power compared to network line speeds, agents can easily monitor network traffic and analyze network traffic to easily determine the desired quality of service requirements.

Description

Method of performing flow-aware flow control, terminal equipment and network device

1 is a view showing a flow recognition flow control apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a view showing FIG. 1 in more detail.

3 is a diagram illustrating a flow recognition flow control apparatus including an information terminal device and network equipment according to another embodiment of the present invention.

4 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment using a queue of a router.

5 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment of using a low priority queue.

6 illustrates an embodiment using a high priority queue.

7 is a flowchart illustrating a flow recognition flow control method according to the present invention.

<Explanation of symbols for the main parts of the drawings>

10 ... information terminal device, personal computer 11 ... analysis unit

12 ... Agents 13 ... Decisions

17 Network interface unit 20 Network equipment, first router

22 ... Network controller 27 ... Receiver

28.Transmitter.

The present invention relates to a flow-aware flow control method, an information terminal device and a network device. In particular, the information terminal device includes an agent capable of monitoring network traffic, and the network device and the appropriate flow control information using data analyzed by the agent. The present invention relates to a flow recognition flow control method, an information terminal device, and a network device that provide a network quality desired by a user by transmitting and receiving.

Conventionally, when providing a network service with the best effort service, the communication quality depends on the network situation and the desired communication quality is not guaranteed. In order to secure communication quality regardless of the network situation, the network equipment attempts to guarantee bandwidth by performing various protocols and complex queue management to guarantee quality of service (QoS). However, this method is not currently commercially available due to excessive costs. Therefore, there is a need for a method that effectively guarantees communication quality at low cost.

In order to solve the above disadvantages, the present invention provides an agent capable of monitoring network traffic and analyzing its characteristics in an information terminal device to exchange information with network equipment connected to the information terminal device. It provides a flow-aware flow control method that can provide appropriate communication quality to users.

Another technical problem to be solved by the present invention is to provide an information terminal device and a network device for performing the flow recognition flow control method in order to solve the above disadvantages.

According to an aspect of the present invention, there is provided a method for monitoring the network traffic between the information terminal and the network equipment by an agent provided in the information terminal connected to the network equipment. Determining whether the flow of packets requires Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee; And if it is determined that service quality guarantee is necessary, requesting the network equipment for service quality guarantee.

The flow-aware flow control method according to the present invention further includes transmitting to the agent whether the quality of service can be guaranteed when the network equipment receives the service quality guarantee request.

In the flow-aware flow control method according to the present invention, the network equipment includes two or more queues having different priorities, and assigns packets of flows that have received a quality of service request from the agent to a high priority queue. And assigning other packets to the low priority queue.

The present invention provides an information terminal device connected to a network device, in order to achieve the above technical problem, an analysis unit for monitoring the network traffic between the information terminal and the network device and analyzes its characteristics; A determination unit determining whether a packet flow requires a quality of service (QoS) guarantee based on the analyzed characteristic; And a network interface unit for requesting service quality guarantee from the network equipment and receiving a service quality availability from the network equipment when service quality assurance is required.

Advantageously, said quality of service guarantee comprises bandwidth allocation.

Preferably, the determination unit judges packets having the same source address and destination address as one flow for an Internet Protocol (IP) packet as one flow and the quality of service for the flow. You can decide that you need coverage.

In addition, the determination unit may further determine packets having the same source port number and destination port number as one flow, and further include packets having the same protocol value as one flow. It may be determined that the flow and the service quality guarantee is required for the flow.

On the other hand, if there is a feature that is periodically repeated through the time interval and packet size information that the packet occurs in the same flow, it can be determined as a service quality guarantee request having a periodic characteristic.

Preferably, the analyzer may analyze the amount of packet data occurring for a predetermined time in the same flow, predict the bandwidth required by the information terminal, and request the network equipment to allocate the bandwidth.

The present invention, in order to achieve the above technical problem, the receiving unit for receiving a service quality guarantee request; A network controller determining whether service quality guarantee is possible in response to the received service quality guarantee request; And a transmitter configured to transmit whether the quality of service can be guaranteed under the control of the network controller.

The network equipment further includes two or more queues of different priorities, and the network controller assigns packets of the flow that received the quality of service request to a higher priority queue and prioritizes other packets. Can be assigned to low priority queues.

Preferably, the information terminal device comprises a personal computer (PC) and the network equipment comprises a router.

Hereinafter, exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the following description of the present invention, when it is determined that detailed descriptions of related well-known technologies or configurations may unnecessarily obscure the subject matter of the present invention, the detailed description will be omitted. In addition, terms to be described below are terms defined in consideration of functions in the present invention, which may vary according to the intention or custom of a user or an operator. Therefore, the definition should be made based on the contents throughout the specification.

1 is a diagram illustrating a flow recognition flow control apparatus including an information terminal device 10 and a network device 20 according to the present invention.

1, the flow recognition flow control apparatus according to the present invention is an information terminal device, for example a personal computer (PC) 10, network equipment, for example a first router 20, a second Router 30, and destination node 40.

Quality assurance through conventional traffic monitoring is mainly done in network equipment. However, due to the nature of network equipment that has to handle a large number of protocols, detailed traffic characterization is virtually impossible. In comparison, information terminal devices, especially PCs, have superior computing power compared to the speed of connected networks. For example, the network bandwidth provided to homes ranges from 56 bits per second (kbps) to 8 Mbps, but the processing speed of PCs is up to several Ghz. In this situation, by utilizing the remaining computing power of the information terminal device, it is possible to secure effective communication quality at low cost, and the present invention provides such a method.

Referring back to FIG. 1, the PC 10, which is an information terminal device, includes an agent 12, and the first router 20 and the second router 30 respectively manage network controllers 22 and 32. Equipped.

The agent 12 monitors packets destined for the first router 20 which is network equipment and analyzes them in real time. When the agent 12 finds a flow requiring bandwidth guarantee, such as Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol (TCP / IP), the first router 20 connected to the PC 10 Notify that there is a flow that requires bandwidth guarantee. Upon receiving the notification, the network controller 22 of the first router 20 controls a scheduler (not shown) of a queue (not shown) in the router, thereby guaranteeing a bandwidth desired by the PC 10 and providing a bandwidth. Notify agent 12 that this is guaranteed.

In addition, the network controller 22 of the first router 20 also transmits and receives information with the network controller 32 of the second router 30 to ensure bandwidth between the two routers. Proceeding up to the end, the end-to-end bandwidth is guaranteed.

As such, the agent 12 monitors the network traffic between the PC 10 and the first router 20 and analyzes the characteristics thereof, and whether the flow of packets requires a Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee. If it is determined that the service quality guarantee is necessary, the first router 20 requests the service quality guarantee.

The network controller 22 of the first router 20 receives a quality of service guarantee request from the agent 12, and transmits a quality of service quality guarantee request to the agent 12. The quality of service guarantee may include bandwidth allocation.

FIG. 2 is a view showing FIG. 1 in more detail.

Referring to FIG. 2, the PC 10, which is an information terminal device, includes an agent 12, an application program 14, a network driver 16, and a network interface card (NIC) 18. The first router 20 and the second router 30 each include a network control processor (NCP) 24, 34 and a packet scheduler (PS) 26, 36.

The PC 10 connects to the Internet network through the network interface card 18. The network interface card 18 transmits the network traffic of the upper application 14 to the first router 20 through the network driver 16. Agent 12 is responsible for monitoring the path that a packet passes between application 14 and network driver 16.

When the agent 12 detects a packet flow having a predetermined bandwidth, such as TCP or User Datagram Protocol (UDP), the agent 12 controls the network of the first router 20 which is an adjacent network device. Requests bandwidth allocation to processor (NCP) 24. In FIG. 2, the agent 12 and the network control processor 24 are directly connected to each other by a dotted line from a logical point of view, but the network interface card (NIC) 18 and the packet scheduler (PS) 26 are physically connected. Signals are transmitted and received using pipe paths, that is, data transmission paths.

Network control processor (NCP) 24, via packet scheduler (PS) 26, performs queue management to ensure the requested bandwidth, and notifies agent 12 that bandwidth allocation has started. If the requested bandwidth allocation is not possible because of the current remaining bandwidth resources, the bandwidth allocation is abandoned and the agent 12 is notified that the bandwidth allocation is not possible. Whether or not the bandwidth can be allocated is sequentially performed to the second router 30, the third router (not shown), ..., the destination node 40 to perform the bandwidth allocation, and if the bandwidth allocation is all successful, the agent is finally Notify 12 that bandwidth guarantees are possible.

3 is a diagram illustrating a flow recognition flow control apparatus including an information terminal device 10 and a network device 20 according to another embodiment of the present invention. The information terminal device 10 includes an analysis unit 11, a determination unit 13, and a network interface unit 17. The network equipment 20 includes a network controller 22, a receiver 27 and a transmitter 28.

The analysis unit 11 may monitor the network traffic between the information terminal device 10 and the network equipment 20 and analyze its characteristics. In addition, the analysis unit 11 may analyze the amount of packet data generated for a predetermined time in the same flow to estimate the bandwidth required by the information terminal.

The determination unit 13 may determine whether the packet flow requires a guarantee of quality of service (QoS) based on the analyzed characteristic. In addition, the determination unit 13 may determine packets having the same source address and destination address as one flow for the Internet Protocol (IP) packet, and may determine that the quality of service is required for the flow. In addition, the determination unit 13 may further determine packets having the same source port number and the destination port number as one flow, and determine that the quality of service is required for the flow. Meanwhile, the determination unit 13 may additionally determine packets having the same protocol value as one flow and determine that service quality is guaranteed for the flow. In addition, the determination unit 13 may determine that the service quality guarantee request having a periodic characteristic when there is a feature that is periodically repeated through the time interval and packet size information that the packet occurs in the same flow.

The analyzing unit 11 and the determining unit 13 may perform a function corresponding to the agent 12 of FIG. 2.

The network interface unit 17 corresponds to the network interface card 18 of FIG. When the quality of service guarantee is required, the network interface unit 17 may request the quality of service guarantee from the network equipment and receive whether the quality of service is available from the network equipment.

The receiver 27 may receive a service quality guarantee request. The network controller 22 may determine whether the quality of service guarantee is possible in response to the received quality of service guarantee request. The transmitter 28 may transmit whether the quality of service can be guaranteed under the control of the network controller 22. The receiver 27 and the transmitter 28 correspond to the packet scheduler 26 of FIG.

4 is a diagram illustrating an embodiment using a queue of a router.

In order to precisely guarantee bandwidth, queues must be managed for each flow. However, in FIG. 4, only the priority queue is simplified and represented. In fact, low-precision bandwidth guarantees guarantee quality of service (QoS) with only a few priority queues. If the Pri-0 queues (3231, 3233, 3331, 3333) have a higher priority than the Pri-1 queues (3232, 3234, 3332, 3334), the bandwidth-allocated flow uses the Pri-0 queue Packet scheduling is performed, and general flows that are not allocated bandwidth can be guaranteed by using packet scheduling to use the Pri-1 queue as the best service.

Preferably, the total sum of the bandwidths allocated to flows using the Pri-0 queue is set to be less than the line rate. By utilizing the agent in the present invention in this manner, it is possible to efficiently mount the function to ensure the quality of service in the network equipment.

As described above, according to the present invention, an information terminal can be provided with an agent to effectively perform quality assurance. By taking advantage of the fact that information terminals such as PCs have higher computing power compared to network line speeds, agents can easily monitor network traffic and analyze network traffic to easily determine the desired quality of service requirements.

Now, a method of judging the same flow in the agent 12 will be described. The criterion of the same flow is determined by whether 1 to 5 header items are the same or within a predetermined range. The criteria for the determination are a destination address, a source address, a destination port number, a source port number, and a protocol value.

For example, the agent may determine packets having the same source address and destination address as one flow for an Internet Protocol (IP) packet as a flow and determine that the quality of service is required for the flow.

In addition, the agent may determine packets with the same source port number and destination port number as one flow, or packets with the same protocol value as one flow, and determine that the quality of service is required for the flow. The agent classifies packets of the same flow based on these criteria and analyzes their characteristics.

On the other hand, if the amount of packet data of the same flow transmitted or received for a predetermined time exceeds a certain value, it may be determined that there is a bandwidth demand, and the bandwidth guarantee request may be made to the neighboring network equipment. In addition, if packets of the same flow repeat transmission or reception at regular intervals, it may be determined that there is a quality of service request having periodic characteristics, and the quality guarantee request may be made.

These analyzes cannot be carried out in detail in network equipment that handles huge traffic due to multiple links, or it is very expensive. However, the analysis can be performed at a relatively low cost when performed in an information terminal device such as a PC. The method is effective.

On the other hand, the TCP flow uses a so-called slow start flow control in which the bandwidth used gradually increases, and the time to reach the desired bandwidth is proportional to the round trip time (RTT). Therefore, the smaller the RTT value, the faster the desired bandwidth.

FIG. 5 illustrates a path through a low priority queue through which packets receiving best effort service without bandwidth guarantees pass. As can be seen in FIG. 5, since the best service usually can share and use only a small bandwidth, the length of the queue is long, resulting in a high RTT value.

In contrast, FIG. 6 shows a path through a high priority queue through which packets with premium service with bandwidth guarantees pass. Since the queue on this path passes only packets of bandwidth less than the bandwidth allocated to the queue, the queue length is relatively short, so the RTT value is small. Therefore, using the present invention has the advantage that the TCP flow can use the desired bandwidth in a short time while maintaining this standardized TCP flow control.

7 is a flowchart illustrating a flow recognition flow control method according to the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 7, first, an agent provided in an information terminal device connected to a network device monitors network traffic between the information terminal device and the network device (step S10). Next, it is determined whether the flow of packets requires Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee (step S20). If it is determined that service quality guarantee is necessary, the network equipment is requested to the service quality guarantee (step S30).

The flow-aware flow control method according to the present invention further includes transmitting to the agent whether the quality of service can be guaranteed when the network equipment receives the service quality guarantee request. Advantageously, said quality of service guarantee comprises bandwidth allocation.

The flow-aware flow control method according to the present invention also includes two or more queues having different priorities from the network equipment, and the packets of the flow having received the quality of service request from the agent are placed in a high priority queue. And allocating other packets to a low priority queue.

The flow recognition flow control method according to the present invention described above may also be embodied as computer readable codes on a computer readable recording medium. The computer-readable recording medium includes all kinds of recording devices in which data that can be read by a computer system is stored. Examples of computer-readable recording media include ROM, RAM, CD-ROM, magnetic tape, floppy disk, optical data storage, and the like, and may also be implemented in the form of a carrier wave (for example, transmission over the Internet). Include. The computer readable recording medium can also be distributed over network coupled computer systems so that the computer readable code is stored and executed in a distributed fashion.

Although the preferred embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail above, those of ordinary skill in the art to which the present invention pertains may make various changes without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention as defined in the appended claims. It will be appreciated that modifications or variations may be made. Accordingly, modifications to future embodiments of the present invention will not depart from the technology of the present invention.

As described above, according to the present invention, an information terminal can be provided with an agent to effectively perform quality assurance. By taking advantage of the fact that information terminals such as PCs have higher computing power compared to network line speeds, agents can easily monitor network traffic and analyze network traffic to easily determine the desired quality of service requirements.

In addition, using the present invention, the TCP flow can use the desired bandwidth in a short time while maintaining standardized TCP flow control.

On the other hand, by using the present invention, not only bandwidth can be secured to the end of the network, but also various communication quality can be guaranteed.

Claims (14)

Monitoring network traffic between the information terminal and the network equipment in an agent provided to the information terminal connected to the network equipment; Determining whether the flow of packets requires Quality of Service (QoS) guarantee; And If it is determined that service quality guarantee is necessary, requesting the network equipment for service quality guarantee. The method of claim 1, And when the network equipment receives the request for quality of service guarantee, transmitting to the agent whether service quality can be guaranteed. The method of claim 1, The quality of service guarantee includes bandwidth allocation. The method of claim 1, The network equipment has two or more queues of different priorities, assigns packets of a flow that have received a quality of service request from the agent to a higher priority queue, and assigns other packets with a lower priority. And assigning to a queue. A recording medium that can be read by a computer including a program for a computer for implementing the flow recognition flow control method according to any one of claims 1 to 4. In the information terminal device connected to the network equipment, An analysis unit for monitoring the network traffic between the information terminal and the network equipment and analyzing the characteristics thereof; A determination unit determining whether a packet flow requires a quality of service (QoS) guarantee based on the analyzed characteristic; And And a network interface unit for requesting service quality guarantee from the network equipment and receiving the service quality availability from the network equipment when service quality assurance is required. The method of claim 6, And the quality of service guarantee includes bandwidth allocation. The method of claim 6, The determination unit judges that packets having the same source address and destination address as one flow for an Internet Protocol (IP) packet as one flow and that quality of service is required for the flow. Information terminal device characterized in that for judging. The method of claim 8, The determination unit may further determine packets having the same source port number and destination port number as one flow, and determine that quality of service is required for the flow. group. The method of claim 9, And the determination unit further determines packets having the same protocol value as one flow and determines that quality of service is required for the flow. The method of claim 6, The determination unit, if there is a feature that is periodically repeated through the time interval and the packet size information that the packet occurs in the same flow, the information terminal device characterized in that it is determined as a service quality guarantee request having a periodic characteristic. The method of claim 6, And the analyzing unit analyzes the amount of packet data generated for a predetermined time in the same flow, and estimates the bandwidth required by the information terminal. A receiving unit for receiving a request for quality of service guarantee; A network controller determining whether service quality guarantee is possible in response to the received service quality guarantee request; And Under the control of the network controller, the network equipment, characterized in that it comprises a transmitting unit for transmitting whether the quality of service guarantee possible. The method of claim 13, Further includes two or more queues of different priorities, And the network controller assigns packets of the flow that received the quality of service guarantee request to a higher priority queue, and assigns other packets to a lower priority queue.

Images