Abstract: In one embodiment, a node-implemented method for performing analysis of traffic within a packet communications network. First, the node measures a traffic aggregate at specified nodes within the network with regard to a packet set of interest. Each traffic aggregate (i) is a set of packets, observed at one of the specified nodes, having a common characteristic and (ii) is measured at one of the specified nodes by creating a digest for the packets having the common characteristic. The digest characterizes the traffic aggregate without containing the actual packets themselves. Next, the node formulates an intersection set cardinality determination for a network traffic-characterizing parameter to be measured in the network utilizing the digests characterizing the traffic aggregates. Next, the node solves the set cardinality determination for the network traffic-characterizing parameter to be measured.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a scheme for the display of targeted and personalized advertisements in a packet-based media-delivery system, such as an Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) service. An Internet keyword-based advertisement-bidding model is used to place the most-appropriate IPTV advertisements for viewers depending on their interests as determined through the users' Internet activities, while maximizing advertising revenue for the IPTV service provider. One method for scheduling an advertisement for rendering in one or more time slots in packet-based media programming comprises: (a) obtaining at least one keyword from one or more Internet sessions corresponding to at least one user; (b) receiving a plurality of bid amounts corresponding to a plurality of available advertisements for the one or more time slots; and (c) scheduling, based on the at least one keyword and at least one of the bid amounts, the advertisement to be rendered to the at least one user in the one or more time slots.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method for estimating the cardinality of one or more tags in a system that has the one or more tags and one or more readers. The reader issues a command requesting that the tags identify themselves. The command includes timing information defining a total number of timeslots. In response to the command, each of the one or more tags (i) selects a timeslot in which to reply to the command and (ii) issues a reply in the selected timeslot.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a wireless-resource broker employs a self-enforcing spectrum-sharing policy, e.g., the expected utility (e.g., rate) a user obtains by following the policy provided by the broker is not less than the expected utility that the user obtains by switching to some other strategy. Each user is associated with one or more transmitter-receiver pairs, e.g., a transmitter of a wireless device and a receiver of a base station in communication via a wireless channel. The broker receives, as input, user parameters characterizing one or more of the transmitters and/or receivers and resource parameters characterizing one or more available spectrum blocks. The broker solves a linear-programming problem to generate and transmit a recommended policy for one or more users. The policy for each user includes information such as the spectrum block(s) to which the user is assigned, the transmission power for the user, and the transmission rate for the user.

Abstract: In one embodiment, IP lookup into a routing table having prefixes of different prefix lengths is performed using a Bloom filter that was programmed with the prefixes corresponding to all of the different prefix lengths without having to expand any of the prefixes programmed into the Bloom filter. Membership probes are performed into the Bloom filter using candidate prefix values of a given network address. The Bloom filter can be implemented in a distributed manner using Bloom sub-filters, where each Bloom sub-filter is hashed based on a set of hash functions, where each different hash function in the set corresponds to a different prefix length in the routing table. Each Bloom sub-filter can in turn be implemented using a plurality of practically realizable multi-port memory devices controlled by a port scheduler. False-positive matches can be detected and next-hop information for true-positive matches retrieved using an off-chip, hash-based prefix table.

Abstract: In one embodiment, IP lookup into a routing table having prefixes of different prefix lengths is performed by hashing a candidate prefix value to generate a plurality of hash values, where m seed hash values are generated by applying m seed hash functions and one or more additional hash values are generated by combining two or more of the seed hash values in different ways, e.g., using a bit-wise XOR function. The hash values are used to perform membership probes into a Bloom filter programmed with the prefixes corresponding to all of the different prefix lengths in the routing table without having to expand any of the prefixes programmed into the Bloom filter.

Abstract: A method of routing data in a multi-hop network. In one embodiment, the method includes: determining that a link-flow vector representing a set of flows to be routed from a source to a destination node satisfies necessary scheduling conditions for achievability; generating a scheduling multi-graph having at least one pair of nodes with multiple edges therebetween; deriving one or more sufficient scheduling conditions for achievability of the vector; solving a linear optimization problem over the necessary scheduling conditions to obtain an upper bound on achievability of the vector; and generating, based on the scheduling multi-graph, a routing solution that is a lower bound on the achievability of the vector and has a set of routes and associated schedule for achieving the vector. At least one node v receives transmissions from a specified plurality ?(v) of other nodes. At least one of the scheduling conditions depends on ?(v).

Abstract: A method of estimating per-flow traffic in a network of nodes interconnected by links samples an incoming traffic stream to a node. A sampling interval is derived based on a desired level of accuracy. The number of two-run occurrences for each flow is tracked in the sample stream. The number of two-runs per flow is then employed to generate an estimate of the traffic of the flow.

Abstract: Capacity design of an optical network for demands of connections forms a linear programming sizing problem for a optimal routing. A dual of the linear programming sizing problem is formed and solved with an approximation algorithm. Edge lengths are initialized based on i) the inverse of the edge's capacity and ii) a scalar constant. Then, the approximation algorithm proceeds in phases to route each commodity over the edges of a graph. During each phase, the demand's flow is sent from the source to destination via multiple iterations. During each iteration, the shortest length-bounded path from the source to the destination is determined, a portion of the flow is sent, and the lengths of the edges that carry the flow are updated. The value employed to scale the network is generated after the last phase from the maximum ratio of edge flow to edge capacity.

Abstract: A given network of nodes that are interconnected by links having corresponding capacities has each link's capacity divided into working capacity and restoration capacity without a priori information about network traffic characteristics. Allocation of working capacity and restoration capacity for the network might be optimized by characterization of the network in accordance with a linear programming problem (LPP) subject to network constraints and then generating a solution to the LPP either exactly or with an approximation. Partitioning the capacity of each link in the network into working and restoration capacities minimizes the restoration capacity overhead in the network to allow for higher network utilization.

Abstract: A computer-implemented method of computing throughput of a data-routing scheme for a network of nodes interconnected by links and having at least one ingress point and at least one egress point. The method includes: deriving a polynomial-size linear program from a combination of a first linear program and a second linear program and solving the polynomial-size linear program. The first linear program has infinite constraints and minimizes maximum-link utilization of a link in a path between the ingress point and the egress point. The second linear program determines whether any constraint of the first linear program is violated.

Abstract: A network of nodes interconnected by links, such as a wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) ring network, is modeled by a delayed graph in which propagation delay between nodes is accounted for. Given the delayed graph, a traffic matrix for an admissible traffic pattern is scheduled over a frame period. Scheduling of the traffic matrix formulates a set of scheduling constraints based on the delays and decomposes the traffic matrix into a set of transmission matrices. Each of the set of transmission matrices is scheduled over the frame period.

Abstract: A method of estimating per-flow traffic in a network of nodes interconnected by links splits the incoming traffic stream to a node into a number of parallel sub-streams by flow assignment using a hash function. Since each flow in the incoming traffic stream constitutes a larger fraction of the traffic in its sub-stream, the probability of obtaining two-runs increases. The number of two-runs per flow is then employed to generate an estimate of the traffic of the flow.

Abstract: A packet network employs restorable routing with service level guarantees. Restorable routing generates two disjoint paths through a network of nodes interconnected by links for a connection request demand between and ingress-egress node pair. Restorable routing employs minimum interference criteria to generate the two disjoint paths such that two disjoint paths cause little or no interference with demands of future connection requests between different ingress-egress pairs. Restorable routing generates maximum 2-route flows for the network ingress-egress node pairs to determine corresponding sets of 2-critical links. A reduced network is formed, its links are weighted based on criticality indices generated from the sets of 2-critical links, and the relatively optimal two disjoint paths are computed for the connection request. One of the two disjoint paths is selected as an active path for routing data of the connection request, and the other disjoint path is selected as the backup path.

Abstract: A network of nodes interconnected by links has content filtering specified at certain nodes, and routing of packet connections through the network is generated based on the specified content-filtering nodes. The network is specified via a content-filtering node placement method and a network-capacity maximization method so as to apply content filtering to packets for substantially all traffic (packet streams) carried by the network.

Abstract: A switch schedules guaranteed-bandwidth, low-jitter-traffic characterized by a guaranteed rate table (GRT) method. A rate matrix generated from collected provisioning information is decomposed into schedule tables by a low jitter (LJ) decomposition method. The LJ decomposition method imposes a set of constraints for the schedule tables: schedule tables are partial permutation matrices, weighted sum of the partial permutation matrices is greater than or equal to the weighted sum of the rate matrix, and each entry in the rate matrix belongs to one element of the LJ decomposition schedule matrices. An integer LJ decomposition programming problem is employed to generate the schedule tables that are scheduled for each time slot of the period of the switch. Schedule tables are selected in turn based upon selecting eligible tables having the earliest finishing time. If necessary, the rate matrix is updated prior to decomposition for a subsequent period.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method for estimating the cardinality of one or more tags in a system that has the one or more tags and one or more readers. The reader issues a command requesting that the tags identify themselves. The command includes timing information defining a total number of timeslots. In response to the command, each of the one or more tags (i) selects a timeslot in which to reply to the command and (ii) issues a reply in the selected timeslot.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a method for estimating the number of tags in a set of tags in a system of tags and readers. The method includes, during each of a plurality of time intervals: (i) transmitting a command requesting that each tag that receives the command determine whether to transmit a reply; and (ii) receiving, in one or more timeslots of a frame corresponding to the time interval, replies from one or more tags. The method further includes providing an estimate of the number of tags in the set of one or more tags based on (i) timeslots in each of the plurality of time intervals that are zero timeslots, i.e., timeslots having no received reply, and (ii) the total number of timeslots in each frame.

Abstract: A scheme for guaranteeing network tunnel path (NTP). e.g., Internet Protocol (IP), service levels in optical (e.g., wavelength-division multiplex (WDM)) networks. The invention, in one embodiment, accounts for both network topology (e.g. switches, cross-connects, and links between nodes) and resource usage (e.g., available/provisioned link bandwidth and available/used wavelength paths), which information may be available from the IP and optical WDM protocol layers, in particular (i) router capacities and (ii) presence or absence of wavelength conversion capability of optical cross-connect at each node. A determination is made whether to route an arriving request for an NTP over existing topology by computing “good” routes in accordance with a defined metric, or to open a new, available optical wavelength path by provisioning nodes of the topology for, and computing “good” routes for new wavelength paths. As many requests as possible are identified without a priori information of future requests.

Abstract: Capacity design of an optical network for demands of fast path restorable (FPR) connections forms a linear programming sizing problem for a optimal routing. A dual of the linear programming sizing problem is formed and solved with an approximation algorithm. Edge lengths are initialized based on i) the inverse of the edge's capacity and ii) a scalar constant. Then, the approximation algorithm proceeds in phases to route each commodity over the edges of a graph. During each phase, the demand's flow is sent from the source to destination via multiple iterations. During each iteration, the set of shortest disjoint paths from the source to the destination is determined, a portion of the flow is sent, and the lengths of the edges that carry the flow are updated. The value employed to scale the network is generated after the last phase from the maximum ratio of edge flow to edge capacity.