Systems and methods for prioritizing and scheduling packets in a communication network

摘要

Systems and methods provide a weight-based scheduling system that incorporates end-user application awareness and can be used with scheduling groups that contain data streams from heterogeneous applications. Individual data queues within a scheduling group can be created based on application class, specific application, individual data streams or some combination thereof. Application information and Application Factors (AF) are used to modify scheduler weights to differentiate between data streams assigned to a scheduling group. Dynamic AF settings may adjust relative importance of user applications to maximize user Quality of Experience (QoE) in response to recurring network patterns, one-time events, application characteristics, protocol characteristics, device characteristics, service level agreements, or combinations thereof. Scheduling weights may be dynamic and incorporate the notions of “duration neglect” and “recency effect” in an end-user's perception of video quality in order to optimally manage video traffic during periods of congestion.

主权项

1. A method for operating a communication device for scheduling transmission of data packets, the method comprising:
receiving data packets from a communication network, the data packets associated with a plurality of data streams; inserting each of the data packets into one of a plurality of data queues, at least one of the plurality of data queues containing data packets associated with at least two of the plurality of data streams, the plurality of data queues being associated with a scheduling group in which each data queue of the scheduling group has a same initial weight; determining, for at least one of the plurality of data queues containing data packets associated with at least two of the plurality of data streams, at least one application associated with at least one of the data packets in the respective data queue; modifying the initial weight for at least one of the data queues for which an associated application was determined, utilizing an application factor associated with the at least one application determined for the respective data queue; scheduling the data packets from the plurality of data queues to an output queue taking into account the modified weights; and transmitting the data packets from the output queue to the communication network.