Multilink traffic shaping

Abstract

A method for performing multilink communications may include applying a quality-of-service (QoS) policy to incoming traffic, where the QoS policy operates to identify a first portion and a second portion of the incoming traffic. The method may include fragmenting the first portion of the incoming traffic into a group of fragments. The method may include sequencing the group of fragments and the second portion of the incoming traffic into a sequenced flow, where the sequencing causes the second portion to be interleaved among the group of fragments so that the sequenced flow can be made available to a first link and a second link as multilink traffic, where the first link carries a first portion of the multilink traffic and the second link carries a second portion of the multilink traffic.

1 . A network device comprising:
 a control unit to:
 associate a first priority with a first portion of incoming traffic and associate a second priority, which is different than the first priority, with a second portion of the incoming traffic; 
 fragment one of the first portion or the second portion of the incoming traffic, based on which of the first portion or the second portion has a higher priority, to produce a plurality of fragments; and 
 sequentially interleave the fragmented one of the first portion or the second portion of the incoming traffic with a non-fragmented portion of the incoming traffic to produce sequenced traffic. 
   
     
     
         2 - 38 . (canceled) 
     
     
         39 . The network device of  claim 1 , where when the fragmented one of the first portion or the second portion, of the incoming traffic, is sequentially interleaved with the non-fragmented portion, of the incoming traffic, the control unit further is to:
 associate a sequence number with each of the plurality of fragments, and   sequentially interleave the fragmented one of the first portion or the second portion of the incoming traffic based on the sequence numbers.   
     
     
         40 . The network device of  claim 1 , where the control unit is further to:
 shape the sequenced traffic to produce shaped traffic.   
     
     
         41 . The network device of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 at least one egress interface to output the sequenced traffic from the network device.   
     
     
         42 . The network device of  claim 41 , where the at least one egress interface includes two or more egress interfaces, and the control unit is further to:
 divide the sequenced traffic among the two or more egress interfaces.   
     
     
         43 . The network device of  claim 1 , further comprising:
 an egress interface, including an egress queue, where the egress interface is to receive the first portion and second portion of the sequenced traffic and provide no information to the control unit regarding a status of the egress queue.   
     
     
         44 . The network device of  claim 1 , where the first priority and the second priority are selected from a group of priorities according to a Quality of Service (QoS) policy. 
     
     
         45 . The network device of  claim 44 , where the group of priorities includes at least the first priority and the second priority, where the first priority is higher than the second priority. 
     
     
         46 . The network device of  claim 45 , where members of the group of priorities are used in conjunction with the QoS policy to determine whether the first portion of the incoming traffic or the second portion of the incoming traffic should be fragmented. 
     
     
         47 . The network device of  claim 1 , where the control unit further is to:
 perform load balancing of a first link that is associated with the first portion of the multilink traffic and load balancing of a second link that is associated with the second portion of the multilink traffic.   
     
     
         48 . The network device of  claim 47 , where the load balancing takes into account a transmit rate, a buffer size, or a link priority associated with the first link or the second link. 
     
     
         49 . The network device of  claim 1 , where a first link is associated with the first portion of multilink traffic and a second link is associated with the second portion of multilink traffic and where the control unit further is to:
 implement byte-wise load balancing of the first link and the second link.   
     
     
         50 . The network device of  claim 1 , where the control unit further is to:
 generate, for the plurality of fragments, a bandwidth reduction value based on a difference between a first length of the plurality of fragments and a second, compressed length of the plurality of fragments, where the bandwidth reduction value is to be used by the control unit to handle subsequent incoming traffic in a manner that uses an additional amount of bandwidth that is substantially equal to the bandwidth reduction value.   
     
     
         51 . The network device of  claim 40 , further comprising:
 a first egress queue associated with the first portion of the incoming traffic, where the first egress queue is to receive shaped traffic in a manner that discourages overrunning the first egress queue; and   a second egress queue associated with the second portion of the incoming traffic, where the second egress queue is to receive shaped traffic in a manner that discourages overrunning the second egress queue.   
     
     
         52 . The network device of  claim 51 , where a first link is associated with the first egress queue and a second link is associated with the second egress queue, and where the first link and the second link are logically associated as a bundle having a bundle bandwidth that includes a first bandwidth associated with the first link and a second bandwidth associated with the second link, and where shaping the sequenced traffic takes the bundle bandwidth into account. 
     
     
         53 . A method comprising:
 associating, using a control unit, a first priority with a first portion of incoming traffic and associating a second priority, which is different than the first priority, with a second portion of the incoming traffic;   fragmenting, using the control unit, one of the first portion or the second portion of the incoming traffic, based on which of the first portion or the second portion has a higher priority, to produce a plurality of fragments; and   sequentially interleaving, using the control unit, the fragmented one of the first portion or the second portion of the incoming traffic with a non-fragmented portion of the incoming traffic to produce sequenced traffic that is to be made available to a first link and a second link, as multilink traffic, where the first link carries a first portion of the multilink traffic and the second link carries a second portion of the multilink traffic.   
     
     
         54 . The method of  claim 53 , where when the fragmented one of the first portion or the second portion, of the incoming traffic, is sequentially interleaved with the non-fragmented portion, of the incoming traffic, the method further comprises:
 associating, using the control unit, a sequence number with each of the plurality of fragments, and   sequentially interleaving, using the control unit, the fragmented one of the first portion or the second portion of the incoming traffic based on the sequence numbers.   
     
     
         55 . The method of  claim 53 , further comprising:
 shaping, using the control unit, the sequenced traffic based on a bundle bandwidth that is formed by a logical association of a first bandwidth associated with the first link and a second bandwidth associated with the second link.   
     
     
         56 . The method of  claim 55 , where shaping the sequenced traffic further comprises:
 shaping, using the control unit, the sequenced traffic so that the sequenced traffic uses less than one hundred percent of the bundle bandwidth.   
     
     
         57 . The method of  claim 53 , further comprising:
 outputting, using the control unit, the sequenced traffic from at least one egress interface associated with the network device.   
     
     
         58 . The method of  claim 57 , where the at least one egress interface includes 2 or more egress interfaces, and outputting the sequenced traffic further comprises:
 dividing the sequenced traffic among the at least one egress interface.   
     
     
         59 . The method of  claim 53 , further comprising:
 shaping the sequenced traffic to discourage overrunning a first queue associated with the first link or a second queue associated with the second link.   
     
     
         60 . The method of  claim 53 , further comprising:
 shaping, using the control unit, the sequenced traffic based on an operator input or a system input, where the operator input or the system input is to configure a shaping rate to discourage dropping one or more of the plurality of fragments.   
     
     
         61 . The method of  claim 53 , further comprising:
 shaping, using the control unit, the sequenced flow, where the shaping takes into account a traffic rate and overhead associated with shaping traffic.   
     
     
         62 . A system, comprising:
 a processor; and   a memory that stores one or more instructions that when executed by the processor, cause the processor to:
 receive incoming traffic from a network; 
 associate a first priority with a first portion of incoming traffic and associate a second priority, which is different than the first priority, with a second portion of the incoming traffic; 
 fragment the portion of the incoming traffic that has a lower priority level and sequentially interleave the fragmented portion of the incoming traffic with another, non-fragmented, portion of the incoming traffic, having a higher priority level, to produce a sequenced flow; 
 shape the sequenced flow to discourage overrunning at least one of a plurality of egress queues associated with sequenced traffic.