A mechanism conveys information pertaining to transmission priority (TP) levels of inbound packets transmitted over a heterogeneous network from a switching node to a hybrid node of the network. The mechanism comprises a packet-recognizing filter having a format that is generated by the hybrid node and dynamically transmitted to the switching node over a predefined communication channel of the network. The filter enables the switching node to classify the inbound packets and assign them appropriate TP levels.
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
This invention is related to the following copending U.S. patent application:
U. S. patent application Ser. No. 08/839,435, titled TECHNIQUE FOR MAINTAINING PRIORITIZATION OF DATA TRANSFERRED AMONG HETEROGENEOUS NODES OF A COMPUTER NETWORK. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/833,837, titled TECHNIQUE FOR CAPTURING INFORMATION NEEDED TO IMPLEMENT TRANSMISSION PRIORITY ROUTING AMONG HETEROGENEOUS NODES OF A COMPUTER NETWORK, which applications were filed on even date herewith and assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08/926,539, titled TECHNIQUE FOR REDUCING THE FLOW OF TOPOLOGY INFORMATION AMONG NODES OF A COMPUTER NETWORK, which application was filed on Sep. 10, 1997 and assigned to the assignee of the present invention.
A data synchronizing method for a radio multi-terminal communications system including a cellular telephone and a PDA (Personal Data Assistant). Messages transmitted between the cellular telephone and the PDA are prioritized. The cellular telephone and the PDA interchange the message data according to the set priority order, thereby sharing the data with reduced data processing time. A radio multi-terminal communications system is also included which uses prioritized messages for sharing data.
In a technique for priority forwarding, an upper layer protocol that requires priority forwarding includes a priority function that is invoked by a lower layer protocol in order to obtain the priority for a message. The upper layer protocol provides the priority function to the lower layer protocol when the upper layer protocol is installed in the protocol stack. The lower layer protocol invokes the priority function before passing a message to the upper layer protocol in order to determine a priority for the message. The lower layer protocol places the message in the appropriate queue based upon the priority indicator obtained from the upper layer protocol's priority function.
A message transmission queue (300) including a high priority queue (HPQ) (301) having a high priority entry point; a medium priority queue (MPQ) (303) having a medium priority entry point; and a low priority queue (LPQ) (305) having a low priority entry point. Messages in the MPQ (303) are queued after all messages in the HPQ (301). Messages in the LPQ (305) are queued after all messages in the MPQ (303). A sequencer reinserts messages into the queue (300) based on the message repeat count and the message's previous queue position.
A packet transfer scheme that applies markings at different levels to packets while they are transferred from their source to destination, in which a marking information at one level will not be lost by a marking at another level is disclosed. A node device receives packets each having a plurality of regions into which priority information can be written, and then transmits each received packet to a next hop node by writing the priority information according to criteria of the own node into one region into which the own node is allowed to write the priority information among the plurality of regions contained in each packet, while maintaining the priority information in other regions as received.
A packet transfer scheme that applies markings at different levels to packets while they are transferred from their source to destination, in which a marking information at one level will not be lost by a marking at another level is disclosed. A node device receives packets each having a plurality of regions into which priority information can be written, and then transmits each received packet to a next hop node by writing the priority information according to criteria of the own node into one region into which the own node is allowed to write the priority information among the plurality of regions contained in each packet, while maintaining the priority information in other regions as received.
