METHOD FOR THE PRIORITY CLASSIFICATION OF FRAMES

摘要

The invention relates to a method of classifying individual frames (OSI level 2 packets) into different priority levels according to the contents thereof. The inventive method is based on the application of a set of rules and sub-rules which are used to analyse the contents of each frame and assign a priority level to the frame accordingly. In this way, the invention enables the low-cost construction of systems which provide a quality of service or classes of service according to any element of the packet, i.e. origin, destination, level three data flow, higher level applications, any type of higher level priority classification (such as IP ToS) and, above all, according to any type of standard or proprietary priority protocol. The invention can also be used to design different priority hierarchies such that it is possible to assign one or other set of priorities depending on the situation (e.g. one hierarchy for TCP packets and a different hierarchy for UDP packets).