Real-time analysis of quality of service for multimedia traffic in a local area network

摘要

The embodiments relate to quality of service (QOS) features for a router, especially a router used in a home network or local area network. In the embodiments, the router is enhanced to be capable of measuring, detecting traffic sessions, and analyzing traffic in real time. The real-time analysis identifies traffic sessions in the data traffic and provides QOS to the traffic sessions. The QOS features are autonomous and do not require user configuration or intervention. In some embodiments, the real-time analysis and QOS features are triggered during periods of congestion.

主权项

1. A router comprising:
an internal communications facility; a set of network interfaces coupled to the internal communications facility; a shared memory, coupled to the internal communications facility, providing a set of queues; and a processor, coupled to the internal communications facility, configured to:
detect a level of congestion on at least one of the network interfaces;responsive to the congestion level being below a threshold level, route packets through the router according to a first mode; andresponsive to the congestion level being above the threshold level, activate a hardware accelerator and route packets according to a second mode, wherein the hardware accelerator is configured to accelerate placement of packets into the set of queues via an expedited communications path over a bus,wherein, in the first mode, the processor is configured to:
read header information from the packets; androute the packets to a next hop based on a route lookup corresponding to the header information, andwherein, in the second mode, the processor is configured to:
cooperate with the hardware accelerator to detect, in real time, sessions in data traffic based on information from portions of the headers in the packets and a current state of a traffic session, wherein the current state of the traffic session is based on packets previously exchanged downstream or upstream between a source and a destination of the traffic session;queue packets that are part of detected sessions based on a size of the packets and a desired quality of service for the session; andforward the queued packets that belong to the traffic sessions in accordance with the desired quality of service.