Classifications

• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L47/00—Traffic control in data switching networks
  • H04L47/10—Flow control; Congestion control
  • H04L47/20—Traffic policing
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
  • H04L12/02—Details
  • H04L12/14—Charging, metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
  • H04L12/02—Details
  • H04L12/14—Charging, metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
  • H04L12/141—Indication of costs
  • H04L12/1414—Indication of costs in real-time
  • H04L12/1417—Advice of charge with threshold, e.g. user indicating maximum cost
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
  • H04L12/02—Details
  • H04L12/14—Charging, metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
  • H04L12/141—Indication of costs
  • H04L12/1421—Indication of expected costs
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
  • H04L12/02—Details
  • H04L12/14—Charging, metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
  • H04L12/1428—Invoice generation, e.g. customization, lay-out, database processing, algorithms for calculating the bill or formatting invoices as WWW pages
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
  • H04L12/02—Details
  • H04L12/14—Charging, metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
  • H04L12/1485—Tariff-related aspects
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/18—Delegation of network management function, e.g. customer network management [CNM]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/22—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks comprising specially adapted graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L47/00—Traffic control in data switching networks
  • H04L47/70—Admission control; Resource allocation
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L47/00—Traffic control in data switching networks
  • H04L47/70—Admission control; Resource allocation
  • H04L47/76—Admission control; Resource allocation using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation requested by the user or requested by the network in response to changing network conditions
  • H04L47/765—Admission control; Resource allocation using dynamic resource allocation, e.g. in-call renegotiation requested by the user or requested by the network in response to changing network conditions triggered by the end-points
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L47/00—Traffic control in data switching networks
  • H04L47/70—Admission control; Resource allocation
  • H04L47/80—Actions related to the user profile or the type of traffic
  • H04L47/808—User-type aware
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L47/00—Traffic control in data switching networks
  • H04L47/70—Admission control; Resource allocation
  • H04L47/82—Miscellaneous aspects
  • H04L47/826—Involving periods of time
• • H—ELECTRICITY
  • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
  • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
  • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
  • H04L41/02—Standardisation; Integration
  • H04L41/0246—Exchanging or transporting network management information using the Internet; Embedding network management web servers in network elements; Web-services-based protocols
  • H04L41/0253—Exchanging or transporting network management information using the Internet; Embedding network management web servers in network elements; Web-services-based protocols using browsers or web-pages for accessing management information

Definitions

• the present invention relates to communications networks, and in particular to a system for controlling the bandwidth allocated to a network connection.
• Wideband communications networks are established by network providers to allow communication between a customer's sites.
• a customer may have a network 46 established between a single-tenanted building 40 and a multi-tenanted building 30 in different cities, to establish a corporate virtual local area network (NLAN), as shown in Figure 1.
• the network 46 may comprise a wideband internet protocol (IP) core 44, linked to the buildings with optical fibre, and interfaced through network switches 32, 34 to customer premises equipment (CPE) 36,42.
• IP internet protocol
• CPE customer premises equipment
• customers may request additional bandwidth from the network provider by informing a customer service representative. After the request is approved, it is passed to network personnel who reconfigure the network to allocate the required bandwidth to the customer's network.
• this process may not occur rapidly enough to meet the customer's needs.
• the customer may only need the additional bandwidth for a short period of time, possibly even as little as several minutes.
• the high cost of the extra bandwidth makes it desirable to be able to reduce the allocated bandwidth after the customer's short-term needs have been satisfied. It is desired, therefore, to provide a system for controlling the bandwidth allocated to a network connection, or at least a useful alternative to existing systems.
• a system for controlling the bandwidth allocated to a network connection between two nodes including: means for receiving a bandwidth change request; means for generating control commands to control a plurality of network elements of said network connection in order to satisfy said change request; and means for sending said commands to said network elements.
• the present invention also provides a method of controlling bandwidth allocated to a network connection, including: receiving a bandwidth change request from a remote computer system over a communications network; identifying at least one switch requiring a configuration change to satisfy said request; and generating and sending a configuration change command to said switch.
• the present invention also provides a bandwidth control interface including: code for generating a display of bandwidths available for selection; code for receiving a bandwidth selection, said selection being chosen from said bandwidths; and code for sending a request to a network to adjust a bandwidth of said network on the basis of said selection.
• Figure 1 is a schematic diagram of a wideband IP network connecting two buildings
• Figure 2 is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of a bandwidth control system
• Figures 3 is a screenshot image of a preferred embodiment of a user interface for the bandwidth control system
• Figures 4 to 5 are screenshot images of a bandwidth control component of the interface; and Figure 6 is a flow diagram of a process executed by the bandwidth control system.
• a bandwidth control system 100 includes a customer web server 11, a network control system, 2, a network model database 3, and a rating engine 5.
• the bandwidth control system 100 allows the customers and personnel of a network service provider to dynamically adjust the bandwidth provisioned between two nodes of a customer's network by adjusting user interface controls provided over a communications network 10.
• An implementation of the bandwidth control system 100 is described where components of the system are provided by software modules stored and executed on otherwise known computer systems.
• the web server 11 may be a personal computer running a WindowsTM operating system
• the network control system 2, database 3 and the rating engine 5 may be implemented on a workstation from Sun MicrosystemsTM, running SolarisTM 2.7, an OracleTM database application, and an OracleTM application server.
• the network 10 used is the Internet in the described implementation. It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that a number of the software modules and hardware components of the bandwidth control system 100 may be distributed or combined in a variety of ways and at a number of different locations and at least some of the steps executed by the software modules may be executed by hardware circuits, such as application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs).
• ASICs application-specific integrated circuits
• the control system 100 can be used to control a NLAN or virtual private network (VPN) 46 between two buildings for a customer organisation, as shown in Figure 1, and established by a network provider.
• the network 46 uses optical fibres to connect a single- tenanted building 40 with a multi-tenanted building 30, and the buildings may be in different cities.
• the network uses optical fibres to connect the buildings through a wideband IP core 44 with Cisco 6500 series switches 38.
• the customer equipment 36, 42 in the single and multi-tenanted buildings 40, 30 are interfaced to the optical fibres by Cisco 3500 series and 6500 series ethernet switches, 34, 32, respectively.
• the network 46 may be currently configured to provide a bandwidth of 146 Mbps between the two buildings 30, 40.
• the customer may wish to trial a new network software application that itself requires high throughput between the two buildings, and the customer estimates that a throughput of 800 Mbps is required, but only for a 30 minute period during the trial.
• the control system 100 can be used to allocate the extra bandwidth by executing the following described below with reference to Figure 6.
• the customer launches a web browser application on a personal computer 12.
• the computer 12 is connected to the Internet 10, but not necessarily through the customer's network.
• the Internet 10 may be accessed from the customer's home through a modem and an Internet service provider (ISP).
• ISP Internet service provider
• the customer enters a universal resource locator (URL) (or URI) into the web browser, which directs the browser to a site operated to the network service provider.
• the URL directs the browser to a network firewall 1 which provides secure access to the customer web server 11 of the network provider.
• the customer In order to gain access to the web server 11, the customer must login to the firewall 1 using a valid username, password, and a dynamically generated identification number generated by a SecurlD authenticator provided by RSA Security, Inc.
• the customer accesses the network provider web server 11 (step 500). Using the web browser, the customer selects a hyperlink to a dynamic web page that generates a network bandwidth interface 300, as shown in Figure 3 (step 502).
• the dynamic web page is written in hypertext markup language (HTML) and JavaScript.
• the interface 300 includes a bandwidth control component 302 for selecting and activating a new bandwidth value, and a bandwidth display component 320 for displaying customer network details, including the site address of a switch or switches 32, 34, 38 to be confirmed, and the currently configured network bandwidth.
• the bandwidth control interface 300 includes a series of buttons 312 and corresponding labels 316 that allow the customer to select a pre-defined range or band of network bandwidths.
• a circular dial 302 displays up to eight pre- defined bandwidth values within the selected band.
• the circular dial 302 is divided into eight pie segments, as in a pie chart, with each available bandwidth value assigned to a particular segment.
• the dial 302 allows the customer to select a particular bandwidth by moving a pointer over the corresponding part of the dial 312, using a pointing device such as a mouse.
• Figure 3 shows the interface 300 after pressing the button 318 to select the lowest bandwidth band, 10-20 Mbps.
• the dial 302 displays eight available bandwidth values: 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, and 20 Mbps.
• the bandwidth value of 13 Mbps is currently selected, as indicated by the position of the dial indicators 306, the green colour of the corresponding segment 307 of the inner annulus 308, and the value displayed in the dial centre 304.
• Figure 4 shows the appearance of the bandwidth control interface 300 after moving the mouse pointer over the 15 Mbps pie segment 324.
• the dial indicators 306 are now positioned over the 15 Mbps pie segment 324, the corresponding annular segment 309 is green, and the dial centre 304 displays the value "15 Mbps".
• Not all of the bands have eight bandwidths available.
• Figure 5 shows the bandwidth control interface 300 after pressing the "500-1000 Mbps" button 322. There are only four bandwidth values available in this band: 500, 600, 800, and 1000 Mbps, with "800 Mbps" currently selected.
• the submit button 314 is pressed (step 504).
• the web server 11 executes a script that submits the bandwidth request to the network control system 2 (step 506).
• the network control system 2 receives the bandwidth request and performs a query on the network model database 3 in order to verify that the request is valid. This requires verification that the requested bandwidth is supported by the customer's network (step 508). If the request is valid, then further queries are performed on the database 3 in order to identify the switches in the customer network 46 whose configurations must be changed in order to satisfy the bandwidth request, and the appropriate format of the command that must be sent to each switch (step 510). Given the customer and site, the network model database 3 provides the IP addresses of these switches.
• the configuration of a Cisco switch may be changed by sending commands to the switch using a command-line interface and the telnet protocol. For example, to change the rate- limit configuration of a NLAN named 'vlan-name' in a Cisco 6500-series switch to 20 Mbps (20480 kbps), the following command would be sent:
• QOS quality-of-service
• the network control system 2 creates a child process for each switch that needs to be changed. Each child process runs an Expect script that sends the appropriate command to the nominated switch and records the response from the switch (step 512). When all of the child processes have terminated, the network control system 2 analyses the switch responses. If the switch responses indicate that all of the QOS changes were successful, then the network control system 2 performs a number of tasks. One task is to send a message to the server 11, indicating that the bandwidth change was successful. When the server 11 receives the notification, it generates a notification window with an "OK" button on the customer's web browser, indicating that the network change was successful. When the customer clicks "OK" to dismiss the notification window, the web page including the bandwidth control interface is refreshed.
• Another task performed by the network control system 2 is to generate and send an email message to the customer, indicating the changes that were made to the network (step 514).
• Another task performed by the network control system 2 when the bandwidth is changed is to generate a charging record and send it to the rating engine 5 (step 516).
• the charging record includes information such as the date and time the change was made, who made the change, a NPN identification code, a billing identifier, the network property that was changed, and the new value of the property.
• the rating engine 5 rates the record according to a set of billing business rules and data stored in the network model database 3, and generates consolidated billing detail records 7 (step 518).
• the billing records 7 reflect the new charges applicable to the new bandwidth value, and a charge for changing the bandwidth value.
• the rating engine 5 also generates an email message summarising the charges, and sends it to the customer.
• the consolidated billing detail records 7 are processed by a Records Automation for Special Services (RASS) robot 8 that enters the details into a RASS order entry and tracking system 18. Records from a RASS system 18 are processed by a billing system 24 that generates the final bill 9 that is sent to the customer.
• RASS Records Automation for Special Services
• the bandwidth control system 100 also allows network provider personnel to perform network changes for customers. For example, a customer may telephone a helpdesk operator and request a bandwidth change.
• the operator using a web browser executing on a personal computer 20, accesses a support server 13 and uses the same bandwidth control interface described above to change the bandwidth of the customer's network. In either case, if the bandwidth is increased for a period of time and then returned to its original value, the customer is only charged for the increased bandwidth for the time that the network was actually configured at that higher bandwidth. However, a fixed charge applies to every configuration change.
• the support server 13 includes the same code and executes the same steps as the customer server 11 to generate the control interface 300 and generate and send bandwidth requests to the network control system 2.
• the support server 13 may be accessed via a private customer support communications network 22.
• the bandwidth control system 100 greatly simplifies the task of reconfiguring network switches to change the bandwidth allocated to a customer's network.
• the desired changes are implemented in real-time, and the configuration may be changed as often as required, subject to a five-minute granularity period. If a bandwidth change is requested within five minutes of the previously successful bandwidth change, the request is denied and an error message to that effect is sent to the user's web browser.

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• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
• Signal Processing (AREA)
• Human Computer Interaction (AREA)
• Databases & Information Systems (AREA)
• Data Exchanges In Wide-Area Networks (AREA)

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• 2002
  • 2002-05-17 WO PCT/AU2002/000618 patent/WO2002096029A1/en not_active Ceased
  • 2002-05-17 US US10/150,754 patent/US7801992B2/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2002-05-17 JP JP2002592563A patent/JP2004530384A/ja active Pending
  • 2002-05-17 AU AU2002308403A patent/AU2002308403B2/en not_active Expired
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