METHOD AND ARRANGEMENT FOR DINAMIC ALLOCATION OF NETWORK RESOURCES
(19)AUSTRALIAN PATENT OFFICE (54) Title METHOD AND ARRANGEMENT FOR DINAMIC ALLOCATION OF NETWORK RESOURCES (51)6 International Patent Classification(s) H04L 012/56 H04Q oii/04 (21) Application No: 2003229875 (22) Application Date: 2003.03.28 (87) WIPONo: WO03/084152 (30) Priority Data (31) Number (32) Date 0207507.5 2002.03.28 (33) Country GB (43) Publication Date : 2003.10.13 (43) Publication Journal Date : 2003.11.20 (71) Applicant(s) MARCONI UK INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LTD (72) Inventor(s) MOORE, Andrew (H) Application NoAU2003229875 A1(19)AUSTRALIAN PATENT OFFICE (54) Title METHOD AND ARRANGEMENT FOR DINAMIC ALLOCATION OF NETWORK RESOURCES (51)6 International Patent Classification(s) H04L 012/56 H04Q oii/04 (21) Application No: 2003229875 (22) Application Date: 2003.03.28 (87) WIPONo: WO03/084152 (30) Priority Data (31) Number (32) Date 0207507.5 2002.03.28 (33) Country GB (43) Publication Date : 2003.10.13 (43) Publication Journal Date : 2003.11.20 (71) Applicant(s) MARCONI UK INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LTD (72) Inventor(s) MOORE, Andrew Dynamic allocation of network resource through the use of a measurement-based estimator is described. Measurements of bandwidth utilization allow a measurement-based estimator to compute the bandwidth requirements of the measured traffic. The use of such an estimator allows provision of differentiated services by adjusting the service-weighting of a queue scheduler and modify the depth and behavior of buffering. By providing a dynamic allocation of resource, the technique makes possible the differentiation of diverse traffic types with a reduction in the complexity and waste of current techniques such as static-allocation or the best-effort service common in the Internet. A novel approach is described to problems arising from the desire to offer diverse and sometimes orthogonal service facilities to a wide variety of traffic types. An apparatus for providing communications network resource to a plurality of classes of use of the network, a different level of service being associated with each said class of use, said apparatus comprising: a demand estimator for estimating the demand for each of said plurality of classes of use; a dynamic resource allocator for allocating to each class a proportion of said communications network resource, the proportion allocated being dependent on the estimated demand for each class, the allocation optimising use of the available resource whilst at the same time ensuring that the level of service of each class is observed; and a communications network element for providing to each class the proportion of network resource allocated to it wherein, in use, the dynamic resource allocator is adapted to dynamically adjust respective buffer depth for each of the classes for queuing data packets. An apparatus according to claim 1 wherein said communications network resource comprises bandwidth of a communications channel fed by said network element and/or buffer depth in said network element. An apparatus as claimed in claim 1 or 2 wherein said demand estimator uses a traffic envelope scheme in which traffic flow is characterised by specifying a particular period or periods over which that characterisation is conducted. An apparatus as claimed in claim 3 wherein the mean and variance of consecutive traffic envelopes is determined to estimate effective bandwidth requirements. An apparatus as claimed in claim 3 or 4 wherein a first effective bandwidth, E long, given by An apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim wherein a best-effort service is provided as one of the classes. An apparatus as claimed in any preceding claim wherein voice and/or video data is transferred across the network.