Granted Patent B1

US 7,359,974 · App. 10/112,577 · Granted Apr 15, 2008

Abstract

Claims (38)

1. A system for dynamically controlling aggregate and individual packet flow characteristics within a compressed logical, network layer data tunnel, comprising:

a traffic manager operative to form a logical, network layer data tunnel with a remote tunnel partner, to transmit one or more packet flows via the logical, network layer data tunnel, each packet flow comprising individual packets having a destination address, by modifying the individual packets in the packet flows to identify the remote tunnel partner as the destination address, further comprising:

a classifier module operative to classify packet flows to determine respective service types, wherein each service type maps to an aggregate bandwidth flow allocation, and further maps to a compression index value;

a compression module operative to compress individual packets of the one or more packet flows, and to apply a compression algorithm to individual packets based on the compression index value associated with the individual packets;

a transmit module operative to

schedule packets for transmission based on the aggregate bandwidth flow allocations of respective packet flows; and

transmit individual packets compressed by the compression module over the logical, network layer data tunnel; and

an evaluation module operative to adjust the aggregate bandwidth flow allocations for the respective service types based on the compressed sizes and original sizes of the individual packets.

2. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising:

a decompression module operative to decompress at least one packet of a packet flow transiting within the logical, network layer data tunnel upon receipt.

3. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising:

a flow index assignment description table associating a service type with each packet flow;

a library maintaining a plurality of data compression functions; and

one such data compression function applied to each packet flow within the at least one such packet stream on one of a per-flow, per-service and multiple shared-service basis.

4. A system according to claim 1 , further comprising:

a partnered traffic manager associating the shared destination address of one such packet flow with a shared source address of a return packet flow comprising one or more individual packets generated responsive to the one such packet flow.

5. A system according to claim 1 , wherein the logical, network layer data tunnel is formed between at least one of a terrestrial networking environment and a satellite communications environment.

6. A system according to claim 1 , wherein at least one packet is compressed using one of Zip, LZW, Huffman, RLE, packet fragment caching, and Lempel-Ziv compression techniques.

7. A method for dynamically controlling aggregate and individual packet flow characteristics within a compressed logical, network layer data tunnel, comprising:

forming a logical, network layer data tunnel with a remote tunnel partner, to transmit one or more packet flows, each packet flow comprising individual packets having a destination address, by modifying the individual packets in the packet flows to identify the remote tunnel partner as the destination address;

controlling bandwidth allocated to the aggregated flow of packets routed through the logical, network layer data tunnel; and

controlling transfer rate assigned to each packet flow transiting within the logical, network layer data tunnel, wherein the controlling the transfer rate comprises:

classifying packet flows to determine respective service types, wherein each service type maps to an aggregate bandwidth flow allocation and maps to a compression index value;

compressing individual packets of the one or more packet flows by applying a compression algorithm to individual packets based on the compression index value associated with the individual packets;

scheduling packets for transmission based on the aggregate bandwidth flow allocations of respective packet flows;

transmitting individual packets compressed by the compression module over the logical, network layer data tunnel; and

adjusting the aggregate bandwidth flow allocation for the respective service types based on the compressed sizes and original sizes of the individual packets.

8. A method according to claim 7 , further comprising:

decompressing at least one packet flow transiting within the logical, network layer data tunnel upon receipt.

9. A method according to claim 7 , the applying step further comprising:

associating a service type with each packet flow;

maintaining a plurality of data compression functions; and

applying one such data compression function to each packet flow within the at least one such packet stream on one of a per-flow, per-service and multiple shared-service basis.

10. A method according to claim 7 , further comprising:

associating the shared destination address of one such packet flow with a shared source address of a return packet flow comprising one or more individual packets generated responsive to the one such packet flow.

11. A method according to claim 7 , wherein the logical, network layer data tunnel is formed between at least one of a terrestrial networking environment and a satellite communications environment.

12. A method according to claim 7 , wherein at least one packet is compressed using one of Zip, LZW, Huffman, RLE, packet fragment caching, and Lempel-Ziv compression techniques.

13. A computer-readable storage medium holding code for performing the method according to claim 7 .

Assignments (12)