The invention relates generally to networking, and more particularly to cell-based transmission scheduling for virtual circuits.
In complex networks, cells are transmitted to physical channels (or “ports”) over a virtual circuit according to traffic parameters of the virtual circuit. One example of such traffic parameters are those specified in the “The ATM Forum Technical Committee Traffic Management Specification Version 4.1”, The ATM Forum, March 1999. An ATM virtual circuit connection may characterize its traffic by using source traffic descriptions, which attempt to capture the cell inter-arrival pattern for resource allocation. Once such traffic descriptor is Peak Cell Rate (PCR), which represents the minimum spacing between cells, and therefore the peak emission rate of the source. The PCR is expressed in cell/seconds.
ATM supports a quality of service required by an application through the selection of an appropriate service category. The services offer different QoS commitments in terms of delay and loss tolerance. The services differ in how the network allocates bandwidth and applies different traffic management functions. The service categories include constant bit rate (CBR), variable bit rate (VBR) and unspecified bit rate (UBR). For CBR and VBR, bandwidth is allocated for the duration of the connection. In contrast, UBR services target for use bandwidth that becomes dynamically available as connections go idle.
The CBR service provides a connection with dedicated bandwidth providing extremely low probability of cell loss, as well as low and predictable delay. The inter-arrival time between two cells is constant and can be characterized as a minimum cell inter-arrival, which corresponds to a known PCR.
The VBR service category is mainly intended for more efficient support of applications that have known or predictable bursty traffic characteristics. The VBR traffic can be characterized by a sustained cell rate (SCR) as well as a PCR. The SCR is measured over a defined period and represents the average transmission rate. The VBR service can be further divided into two subcategories based on delay requirements, the real-time VBR (rt-VBR) and non-real-time VBR (nrt-VBR). The rt-VBR has strict end-to-end delay requirements, whereas the nrt-VBR does not guarantee any delay bounds.
A UBR virtual circuit can have a priority determined by the weight associated with such VC on a given port.
Ports can be characterized in terms of the maximum rates at which they are capable of transmitting.
The DSLAM 12 can be characterized as having a CPE side with first port interfaces 24 for handling ATM cell-based traffic associated with corresponding DSL links or connections 14, and one or more second port interfaces 26, which are coupled to a router (or ATM switch) 28 via a WAN uplink connection 30. The router/switch 28 connects to a service network, such as the Internet 18, as indicated earlier, or some other type of service network, for example, an ATM network 32. Thus, for upstream traffic, many DSL ports on the CPE side may be aggregated at the DSLAM 12 and, on the service provider side, connected to the service network router with a single physical port interface.
For each port, there may be many virtual connections. The virtual connections represent “state full” communication setups, such as an ATM virtual circuit or Internet TCP connection. At each end of the network virtual connection is an application that can send and receive messages. The messages are carried across the network as packets or frames, which are further subdivided into 48 byte ATM cells. The interface into and out of the DSLAM 12 is either cell-based (48 byte ATM cells) or packet (or segment) -based (64 byte packet or greater sized segments based on the MTU on port interfaces 26). In the embodiment shown, the first port interfaces 24 are cell-based and the second port interfaces 26 handle frames (or packets). Each virtual connection has a quality of service or rate specification. In the described embodiment, the types of rates include constant bit rate (CBR), real-time and non-real-time variable bit rate (rt-VBR and nrt-VBR, respectively) and unspecified bit rate (UBR). A priority may be associated with a VC that contracts with the UBR service.
Referring to
The SAR 34 may be implemented with a commercially available network processor, for example, the Intel® IXP™ 1200 network processor. In such an embodiment, as shown in
Referring now to
The port specific control structures 58 include ports tables 66, an array of UBR VCs 67, a “first chance” queue 68 and a Queue With Packet (QWP) vector 70. The scheduler control structures 59 include a scheduler message queue 72, as well as a shaped VC control structure 74 and an unshaped VC control structure 75. In the illustrated embodiment, the VC control structures 74 and 75 are implemented as calendarqueues, and are thus depicted conceptually and referred to hereinafter as “wheels”.
The scheduler message queue 72 stores schedule requests generated by the receive process 50 or shaper process 54, and is read by the scheduler process 52. The requests are cell transmission scheduling requests, which are VC-specific, and are therefore associated with one of the service types, that is, CBR, rt-VBR, nrt-VBR or UBR. The shaped VC wheel 74 and the unshaped VC wheel 75 hold current schedules. More specifically, the shaped VC wheel 74 is used to schedule CBR and rt-VBR VCs and, at times, nrt-VBR VCs (to meet SCR) as well, whereas the unshaped VC wheel 75 is used to schedule nrt-VBRVCs (with the aforementioned exception) and UBR VCs and, at times (e.g., to accommodate schedules to be added when a port goes from a flow-control asserted to de-asserted state), CBR and rt-VBR VCs as well, as will be explained in further detail later. The wheels 74, 75 are implemented as an array of time slots, the wheel 74 including slots 76 and the wheel 75 including slots 77, and the slots 76, 77 correspond to the maximum transmit rate of the network processor. Each slot represents a time slot in which an ATM cell can be transmitted.
The number of slots in the wheels is a function of aggregate port bandwidth. For example, for an aggregate bandwidth of 622 Mb/s, say, the smallest granularity of bandwidth that can be supported on any port is 9.6 Kb, which means that the wheels would be partitioned into 64 k locations or slots.
Cell transmit rate refers to the spacing between cell transmits to the network by the shaper/transmit process 54. The shaped wheel 74 is operated in absolute time. It steps every n cycles regardless of whether there are any cells to be transmitted. The timing of the unshaped wheel 76 is relative (with a current shaped wheel slot index), as will be described. It advances only when the shaped wheel has no cell to be transmitted in the current time slot.
A VC index associated with a virtual connection is stored in a particular one of the slots 76, 77, during scheduling. The VC may have a traffic parameter that requires it to be serviced at least at a predetermined rate. For example, a CBR VC must conform to a PCR specified for that VC. An rt-VBR must conform to PCR, SCR and Maximum Burst Size (MBS) parameters specified for that VC. Both CBR and rt-VBR will need to conform to the maximum cell transfer delay (maxCTD) as a measure of service quality. Cell Delay Variable Tolerance (CDVT) is used as a measure of time to compensate for jitter introduced due to the scheduling inefficiency.
The ports have data rates that can be measured and constrained. Like the PCR/SCR rate (bandwidth) associated with VCs, the rate of a port is converted from bits/sec to number of time slots determined by the port's inter-cell gap: more time slots yield a smaller rate. The conversion takes into account the network processors clock frequency and the clock cycle budget to process a single cell based on the aggregate bandwidth (sum of bandwidth of all ports).
One constraint consideration when configuring ports is the rates of VCs allocated to a port. Allocation is limited such that the sum of the minimum service rates for VC does not exceed the desired rate of the port. This ensures that all VCs on a given port can be serviced to their minimum rates.
The VC is scheduled into a wheel with sufficient spacing for transmission with sufficiency frequency to ensure that the transmission rate conforms to both the VC cell transmit rate and the port transmit rate.
The QWP vector 70 is a bit vector in which one bit position corresponds to the first chance queue 68 and 16 bit positions correspond to UBR VCs associated with a port. The array of UBR VCs 67 includes up to 16 entries, and each entry's priority is determined by the weight associated with it. Each array element is associated with a VC by a value indicating the VC index of that VC and contains the Weighted Round Robin (WRR) parameters.
If a bit position in the QWP vector has a value of one, either the first-chance queue or one of the 16 VCs has data awaiting transmission. When queuing packets in the VC queues associated with a VC that is either a UBR or a nrt-VBR VC that does not conform to SCR, the receive process 50 sets the corresponding bit in the QWP vector to one. When the transmit process 54 empties the VC queue queue (corresponding to the VBR-nrt or UBR), it sets the corresponding bit to zero.
The per-VC packet queues 62 include linked list queues, each associated with some VC. Given a VC index, the transmit process 54 can go to the associated per-VC packet queue 62 to get packet descriptor information and locate the corresponding packets. The transmit process 54 performs segmentation (that is, segments the packets into ATM cells) according to well-known SAR techniques.
As indicated earlier, the wheel slots represent processor time slots. Shaped wheel slots 76 reference VCs having “shaped” service rates CBR and rt-VBR, or sometimes SCR-conforming nrt-VBR. The allocation of the slots 76 to VCs provides a schedule for regular service to those VCs. Unshaped wheel slots 77 typically reference VCs having “unshaped” service rates nrt-VBR (PCR conforming) or UBR, but, as mentioned above, may also reference VCs having CBR and rt-VBR service rates.
The slots 76 of the shaped wheel 74 each reference VCs from two grades of service rates.
In filling slots in the wheels, the scheduler 52 must ensure that the VC cell rate obeys the VC traffic parameters but does not exceed the physical port rate, as will be described later with reference to FIGS. 7 and 8A-8B.
Virtual circuits are selected for transmission from the unshaped wheel 76 when must-send and could-send virtual VCs in the shaped wheel, which have a higher priority, have not been scheduled. Thus, the unshaped wheel 75 provides rate control for VCs that are prioritized behind VCs referenced by must-send 78 and could-send fields 79 on the shaped wheel slots.
Returning to
The first chance queue 68 stores references to VCs, in FIFO order. First chance queue 68 is used for traffic to be transmitted to a VC at the first opportunity, as will be described.
The shaping/transmit process 54 is a process that manages the contention of multiple VCs, having various service rates, for transmission. The shaping/transmit process 54 iterates over the slots of the wheels to select VCs for transmission. In general, the shaping/transmit process 54 determines how time slots associated with the wheels 74, 75 will be used to transmit cells.
Further details of these control structures will be provided in the description of the operation of the SAR downstream processes 50, 52 and 54 to follow.
Incoming packets arrive and are stored in a receive buffer in main memory (not shown) pending transmission. Receive process 50 validate cells from the receive buffers and stages them by enqueuing the packets in the VC packet queues 62, pending transmission by the transmit process 54. The receive process 50 enqueues the packets based on the VC index of the VC with which each packet is associated. The transmit process 54 dequeues the packets from the VC packet queues 62, segments the packets into cells and transmits cells at specified cell rates appropriate to the VC and destination port, as will be explained. The VC index gives the position of the VC in VC table 60.
Referring to
In the described embodiment, to send a message to the scheduler 52, the receive process 50 stores a schedule request in the message queue 72. This is done only when the VC packet queue transitions from an empty to non-empty state as a result of a new packet being stored in that VC packet queue, as discussed above. The scheduler 52 does not look for work in the VC packet queue. It waits to be told (via the enqueuing of a scheduler request) that there is work to do for a particular VC. This is a work conserving property of the scheduler 52. The message queue 72 is also used for any work-related messages by the shaper 54 for the scheduler 52.
In particular, when queuing packets for CBR or VBR or UBR, the receive process 50 sends a message to the message queue 72 to request either a shaped scheduling (CBR, rt-VBR) or unshaped scheduling (UBR, nrt-VBR) for transmission.
Referring to
If, at 102, the VC is determined to be an unshaped VC, and the scheduler 52 determines 110 that the first chance queue is not empty, the scheduler 52 de-queues 112 an entry from the first chance queue. If, at 110, the scheduler determines that the first chance queue is empty, the scheduler determines an unshaped VC to be processed based on a WRR weight 114. The first chance queue is checked on packet boundaries (as opposed to cell boundaries).
The simple case of the WRR is the round robin. If there are N connections, each separately queued, the RR mechanism in each cycle visits each of the queues and servers a cell if any is waiting. Thus, the RR mechanism shares the link bandwidth equally among all of the queues. Instead of an equal share, a weighted share per queue is also possible by assigning weights to each queue and giving slots proportional to the weight in each cycle.
Thus, when the scheduler 52 considers virtual circuits of an nrt-VBR or a UBR type, it uses the Queue With Packets bit vector 70 to check if the bit corresponding to the first-chance queue is set. If it is not set, the scheduler 52 uses the WRR algorithm to find the next UBR VC in the array of UBR VCs 67 that has data to transmit.
The scheduler determines 116 the schedule for the next cell on this VC in the unshaped wheel. The scheduler 52 sets 118 the schedule in the unshaped wheel by storing the VC index in the appropriate slot. The scheduler 52 updates 109 the appropriate port table and VC table with the most recent scheduling information and returns to 100 to process the next received message.
Referring to
If, at 129, the VC is determined to be nrt-VBR, the scheduler process 52 performs 130, 136 and 138 (indicated collectively by reference numeral 145) as described above. The scheduler process 52 determines 146 if the slot found (at 145) is near the latest next cell transmit time (that is, if the slot conforms to SCR). If so, the scheduler process 52 places 147 the VC index in the must-send field in that earliest open slot of the shaped wheel 74. Otherwise, the scheduler process 52 handles the VC under unshaped traffic scheduling (discussed below with reference to
Referring to
During scheduling on the unshaped wheel 75, the scheduler determines a slot 165 pointed to by the current slot pointer or index (pointer 166) on the shaped wheel and adds to that slot number at least an offset based on the minimum inter-cell gap or spacing, which is 255 in the running example, or offset 167.
The shaping process 54 selects VCs for transmission. It iterates over slots in the wheels, examines wheel slots/entries, and determines how the slots will be used to transmit data.
Referring to
Thus, the unshaped wheel 75 advances only when it has a cell to transmit. The shaped wheel 74 advances in all cases (that is, whether or not it has a cell to transmit).
The shaper/transmit process 54 reconverts the scheduled slot time to an actual hardware cycle time so that the cell is transmitted as close to the desired time (traffic management contracted time) as possible.
As discussed earlier, the scheduling/shaping algorithms can be implemented in a multiprocessor, multi-threaded architecture such as the Intel® IXP™ 1200. In one such embodiment, for example, and as shown in
As discussed above, the scheduling of the SAR 34 is performed on an as-needed basis. The must-send/could-send slot scheme allows a CBR VC to be scheduled after a VBR VC on the shaped wheel, with the CBR taking priority. It also minimizes additional reads should the VBR schedule be stored in a separate wheel. The first chance queue allows a displaced VBR scheduled VC to be sent at the earliest opportunity for a port. The scheduling of unshaped VCs in a relative time wheel eliminates searching for a port that has data, and assures the port rate is not exceeded by maintaining that back-to-back cells are separated by an inter-cell minimum gap.
In another embodiment, as will be described with reference to
Referring to
The scheduler control structures 59′ include the scheduler message queue 72, as well as a VC control structure 220. In the illustrated embodiment, the VC control structure 220 is implemented as a calendar queue (“wheel”).
The VC wheel 220 hold current schedules. More specifically, the VC wheel 220 is used to schedule both shaped and unshaped traffic. The wheel 220 is implemented as an array of time slots, including slots 222, and the slots 222 correspond to the maximum transmit rate of the network processor. Each slot represents a time slot in which an ATM cell can be transmitted. The number of slots in the wheel is a function of aggregate port bandwidth. Cell transmit rate refers to the spacing between cell transmits to the network by the shaper/transmit process 54′. The wheel 220 is operated in absolute time. It steps every n cycles regardless of whether there are any cells to be transmitted.
A VC index associated with a virtual connection is stored in a particular one of the slots 222 during scheduling. The VC may have a traffic parameter that requires it to be serviced at least at a predetermined rate. For example, a CBR VC must conform to a PCR specified for that VC. An rt-VBR must conform to PCR, SCR and Maximum Burst Size (MBS) parameters specified for that VC. Both CBR and rt-VBR will need to conform to the maximum cell transfer delay (maxCTD) as a measure of service quality. Cell Delay Variable T (CDVT) is used as a measure of time to compensate for jitter introduced due to the scheduling inefficiency.
The VC is scheduled into the wheel 220 with sufficient spacing for transmission with sufficient frequency to ensure that the transmission rate conforms to both the VC cell transmit rate and the port transmit rate.
The slots 222 of the wheel 220 each reference VCs from two grades of service rates for shaped traffic, as well as unshaped VCs.
In one implementation, the slot is organized as three longwords (32 bits). Two longwords are used to hold the contents of fields 224 and 226 respectively. The other longword is used to hold the Best Effort information of the Best Effort field 228. Each longword has the capability to store the port number associated with the scheduled VC in a port number information field 229. If more than one of the fields 224, 226, and 228 are populated in a given slot and the VC selected for transmission is determined to be flow controlled, the port numbers could enable the shaper process 54′ to determine in an efficient manner that another VC can be selected for transmission if the port numbers indicate that that VC and the originally selected VC are associated with different ports.
Returning to
The shaping/transmit process 54′ is a process that manages the contention of multiple VCs, having various service rates, for transmission. The shaping/transmit process 54′ iterates over the slots of the wheel 220 to select VCs for transmission. In general, the shaping/transmit process 54′determines how time slots 222 and fields within the time slots 222 will be used to transmit cells.
Further details of the wheel 220 will be provided in the description of the operation of the SAR downstream processes 52′ and 54′ to follow.
Referring to
If, at 102, the VC is determined to be an unshaped VC, and the scheduler 52′ determines 110 that the first chance queue is not empty, the scheduler 52′ de-queues 112 an entry from the first chance queue. If, at 110, the scheduler determines that the first chance queue is empty, the scheduler determines an unshaped VC to be processed based on a WRR weight 114. The first chance queue is checked on packet boundaries (as opposed to cell boundaries).
The scheduler determines 116′ the schedule for the next cell on this VC in the wheel 220. The scheduler 52′ sets 118′ the schedule in the wheel 220 by storing the VC index in the appropriate slot.
Referring to
Referring to
Referring to
If, at 278 and 280, the process 54′ determines that either a could-send VC index or Best Effort VC index, or both, is present in that slot along with a must-send VC index, the process 54′ sends 290 a re-schedule message to the scheduler 52′ prior to determining if port control is asserted at 282. The re-schedule message informs the scheduler 52′ that the VC corresponding to the VC index in the Best Effort and/or could-send fields is to be re-scheduled.
If, at 276, the process 54′ determines that the must-send field is empty, the process 54′ determines 292 if a could-send VC index is present in the entry. If so, and the process 54′ further determines 294 that a Best Effort VC index is also present in the entry, the process 54′ sends 290 a reschedule message to the scheduler to re-schedule the Best Effort VC and proceeds to 282. Otherwise, if no Best Effort VC is scheduled in the entry, the process 54′ does not send a reschedule message but proceeds directly to 282. If, at 292, the process 54′ determines that no could-send VC index is present in the entry, the process 54′ still checks for a Best Effort VC index in the Best Effort field. If that field contains a VC index, the process 54′ proceeds to 282. If, at 296, it is determined that no Best Effort VC is present, the process 54′ proceeds to 286.
Returning to the multi-threaded processing architecture of
Other embodiments are within the scope of the following claims.
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