Method and device for detecting congestion on a transmission link

1. A method for detecting congestion on a transmission link, the transmission link having two ends, one or more items of equipment being connected to each end of said transmission link so that at least one of said ends has only one item of equipment connected thereto, the method comprising:

determining a master and one or more slaves among the items of equipment connected to the ends of the transmission link, the master always being the item of equipment that is solely connected at one of the ends of the transmission link;

exchanging data via said transmission link during a predetermined period;

calculating, by each item of equipment, in application layer of said item of equipment, a data rate of data sent or received during the predetermined period via said transmission link;

exchanging, at initiative of the master and at the end of the predetermined period, messages between the master to the at least one slave, so that at least one of the items of equipment gathers the data rates calculated by the master and by the at least one slave for the predetermined period, and wherein the exchanged messages are messages in application layer;

determining, in application layer of the at least one of the items of equipment that gathers the data rates calculated by the master and by the at least one slave for the predetermined period, that a congestion occurs, when the data rate of data received at one of the ends of the transmission link is less than the data rate of data sent at the other end of the transmission link, wherein information representative of the data rate of data received or sent at one of the ends of the transmission link are included in the exchanged messages; and

informing a quality of service management system, when a congestion occurrence via the transmission link has been determined, that said congestion has occurred, so that service admission at boundaries of a quality of service domain be adapted to the congestion occurrence,

and further comprising:

sending an acknowledgement message acknowledging, by the master, each response received, wherein the acknowledgement message is a message in application layer,

calculating a round trip time, when successive responses are received by the master; and

predicting that congestion occurs, when a gradual extension of the round trip appears between the successive response, wherein the gradual extension appears when the calculated round trip time continuously increases along the successive responses.

2. The method for detecting congestion according to claim 1 , wherein the messages exchanged are as follows:

sending, by the master, a request to the at least one slave;

sending, by each slave, when the request is received from the master, a response to said request, wherein the request and each response are messages in application layer,

and wherein the master determines whether congestion occurs from the data rate calculated by the master and further from the data rate calculated by the at least one slave, wherein said the data rate calculated by the at least one slave is contained in said response sent by said at least one slave.

3. The method for detecting congestion according to claim 1 , wherein there is solely one slave at its end of the transmission link and the messages exchanged are as follows:

sending, by the master, a request to the at least one slave; and

sending, by each slave, when the request is received from the master, a response to said request, wherein the request and each response are messages in application layer,

and wherein said slave determines whether congestion occurs from the data rate calculated by the master and further from the data rate calculated by said slave, wherein said data rate calculated by the master is contained in said request.

4. A method for managing quality of service, wherein the method comprises determining service admission at boundaries of a quality of service domain on the basis of determining congestion on at least one transmission link by applying, with respect to said at least one transmission link, the method for detecting congestion according to claim 1 .

5. The method for detecting congestion according to claim 1 , wherein there are plural slaves, and wherein the master performs:

receiving from each slave a message including information of rate of data received from the transmission link by said slave or of data sent on the transmission link by said slave,

performing a comparison of a sum of the rates of data received from the transmission link by the slaves with rate of data sent by the master on the transmission link, or a comparison of a sum of the rates of data sent on the transmission link by the slaves with rate of data received by the master from the transmission link, and

determining that a congestion occurred when the comparison shows that the rate of data received at one of the ends of the transmission link is less than the data rate of data sent at the other end of the transmission link.

6. A method for detecting congestion on a transmission link, the transmission link having two ends, one or more items of equipment being connected to each end of said transmission link so that at least one of said ends has only one item of equipment connected thereto, the method comprising:

determining a master and one or more slaves among the items of equipment connected to the ends of the transmission link, the master always being the item of equipment that is solely connected at one of the ends of the transmission link;

exchanging data via said transmission link during a predetermined period;

calculating, by each item of equipment, in application layer of said item of equipment, a data rate of data sent or received during the predetermined period via said transmission link;

exchanging, at initiative of the master and at the end of the predetermined period, messages between the master to the at least one slave, so that at least one of the items of equipment gathers the data rates calculated by the master and by the at least one slave for the predetermined period, and wherein the exchanged messages are messages in application layer;

determining, in application layer, that a congestion occurs, when the data rate of data received at one of the ends of the transmission link is less than the data rate of data sent at the other end of the transmission link; and

informing a quality of service management system, when a congestion occurrence via the transmission link has been determined, that said congestion has occurred, so that service admission at boundaries of a quality of service domain be adapted to the congestion occurrence,

wherein the messages exchanged are as follows:

sending, by the master, a request to the at least one slave;

sending, by each slave, when the request is received from the master, a response to said request, wherein the request and each response are messages in application layer,

and wherein the master determines whether congestion occurs from the data rate calculated by the master and further from the data rate calculated by the at least one slave, wherein said the data rate calculated by the at least one slave is contained in said response sent by said at least one slave,

and further comprising:

calculating a round trip time, when successive responses are received by the master, and

predicting that congestion occurs, when a gradual extension of the round trip appears between the successive responses, wherein the gradual extension appears when the calculated round trip time continuously increases along the successive responses.

7. The method for detecting congestion according to claim 6 , further comprising:

detecting the loss of an intermediate link, when there still exists a path between the items of equipment connected to the respective ends of said transmission link, by a sudden extension of the round trip time between the successive responses, wherein the sudden extension appears when the calculated round trip time increases by more than a predefined threshold along the successive responses.