Ethernet differentiated services architecture
View Patent ↗An edge node of a communication network and method to classify incoming Ethernet traffic based on predetermined criteria. An ingress switch is configured to receive an incoming Ethernet frame. A frame classifier is configured to identify flows and to correlate a flow to a corresponding bandwidth profile and corresponding forwarding treatments defined for the flow.
1. A communications network, the network comprising:
an edge node including an edge node port receiving traffic in the network, the edge node being configured to:
a) classify the traffic to select a per-hop behavior according to at least one of a Layer 1 to Layer 7 (L1-L7) header information in the traffic; and
b) set priority bits in tag fields of headers of ethernet frames carrying the classified traffic to identify the selected per hop behavior; and
a core node including a core node port receiving the ethernet frames carrying the classified traffic, the core node being configured to process the ethernet frames according to the per-hop behavior identified by the priority bits.
2. The network of claim 1 , wherein the processing by the core node includes dropping ethernet frames.
3. The network of claim 2 , wherein the ethernet frames are dropped based on their drop precedence level.
4. The network of claim 3 , wherein the drop precedence level of a frame is associated with a class of the frame that defines the identified per-hop behavior.
5. The network of claim 1 , wherein the processing by the core node includes shaping ethernet frames.
6. The network of claim 1 , wherein the processing by the core node includes remarking ethernet frames.
7. The network of claim 1 , wherein the selected per-hop behavior includes expedited forwarding.
8. The network of claim 1 , wherein the selected per-hop behavior includes assured forwarding.
9. The network of claim 1 , wherein the selected per-hop behavior includes default forwarding.
10. The network of claim 1 , wherein the at least one of the L1-L7 header information includes a differentiated services code point.
11. A core node in a network, the core node comprising:
a port configured to receive ethernet frames carrying traffic, the ethernet frames having priority bits in tag fields of headers that are set to identify per-hop behavior; and
the core node being configured to process the ethernet frames according to the per-hop behavior identified by the priority bits, the identified per-hop behavior being selected by classifying the traffic according to at least one of the L1-L7 header information in the traffic.
12. The core node of claim 11 , wherein the processing by the core node includes dropping ethernet frames.
13. The core node of claim 12 , wherein ethernet frames are dropped based on their drop precedence level.
14. The core node of claim 13 , wherein the drop precedence level of a frame is associated with a class of the frame that defines the identified per-hop behavior.
15. The core node of claim 11 , wherein the processing by the core node includes shaping ethernet frames.
16. The core node of claim 11 , wherein the processing by the core node includes remarking ethernet frames.
17. The core node of claim 11 , wherein the selected per-hop behavior includes expedited forwarding.
18. The core node of claim 11 , wherein the selected per-hop behavior includes assured forwarding.
19. The core node of claim 11 , wherein the selected per-hop behavior includes default forwarding.
20. The core node of claim 11 , wherein the at least one of the L1-L7 header information includes a differentiated services code point.