text:
|Publication number
|Publication type
|Application number
|Publication date
|Oct 23, 2008
|Filing date
|May 19, 2008
|Priority date
|Jun 4, 2002
|Also published as
|Publication number
|Zahid Hussain, Tim Millet
|Original Assignee
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Export Citation
|BiBTeX, EndNote, RefMan
|Referenced by (20), Classifications (45), Legal Events (1)
|External Links: USPTO, USPTO Assignment, Espacenet
The present invention relates generally to packet switching, and more particularly to a system and method for providing IP services in an integrated fashion.
This application is related to co-pending U.S. patent application entitled "System and Method for Hierarchical Metering in a Virtual Router Based Network Switch," filed concurrently herewith and having Attorney docket number 1384.018us1, to co-pending U.S. patent application entitled "Network Packet Steering," filed concurrently herewith and having Attorney docket number 1384.019us1, to co-pending U.S. patent application entitled "Methods and Systems for a Distributed Provider Edge," filed concurrently herewith and having Attorney docket number 1384.020us1, to co-pending U.S. patent application entitled "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING ROUTING IN A VIRTUAL ROUTER SYSTEM," filed concurrently herewith and having Attorney docket number 1384.023us1, and to co-pending U.S. patent application entitled "System and Method for Routing Traffic through a Virtual Router-Based Network Switch", filed concurrently herewith and having Attorney docket number 1384.024us1, all of which are assigned to the same assignee as the present application and all of which are incorporated herein by reference.
A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material that is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. The following notice applies to the software and data as described below and in the drawings hereto: Copyright� 2002, [Client name] All Rights Reserved.
Internet or WAN service providers (SPs) operate in a crowded marketplace where cost effectiveness is critical. Cost control is, however, difficult. At present internetwork bandwidth is a commodity item with extremely tight margins. If the SP wishes to provide additional value-added services such as firewalls, the SP must install and configure expensive Customer Premises Equipment (CPE) at subscriber locations. Problems that arise often require a trip by a service technician to the subscriber's location. It can be difficult to add new services.
This model of value-added service delivery creates an expensive up-front capital investment, as well as significant operational expenses that are associated with onsite installation and management of thousands of distributed devices. The results are service delivery delays, increased customer start-up costs and/or thinner service provider margins.
Service providers need a way of escape from commoditized bandwidth offerings and from traditional equipment-intensive service delivery architectures that drain profits.
The above-mentioned shortcomings, disadvantages and problems are addressed by the present invention, which will be understood by reading and studying the following specification.
According to one aspect of the present invention, a system and method for providing IP services includes receiving a packet at a line interface/network module, forwarding the packet to a virtual routing engine and determining, at the virtual routing engine, if the packet requires processing by a virtual services engine. If the packet requires processing by the virtual services engine, routing the packet to the virtual services engine for processing.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a system and method for providing IP services includes receiving a packet at a line interface/network module, forwarding the packet to a virtual routing engine and determining, at the virtual routing engine, if the packet requires processing by an advanced security engine. If the packet requires processing by the advanced security engine, routing the packet to the advanced security engine for processing.
The present invention describes systems, clients, servers, methods, and computer-readable media of varying scope. In addition to the aspects and advantages of the present invention described in this summary, further aspects and advantages of the invention will become apparent by reference to the drawings and by reading the detailed description that follows.
In the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments of the invention, reference is made to the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof, and in which is shown by way of illustration specific exemplary embodiments in which the invention may be practiced. These embodiments are described in sufficient detail to enable those skilled in the art to practice the invention, and it is to be understood that other embodiments may be utilized and that logical, mechanical, electrical and other changes may be made without departing from the scope of the present invention.
Some portions of the detailed descriptions which follow are presented in terms of algorithms and symbolic representations of operations on data bits within a computer memory. These algorithmic descriptions and representations are the ways used by those skilled in the data processing arts to most effectively convey the substance of their work to others skilled in the art. An algorithm is here, and generally, conceived to be a self-consistent sequence of steps leading to a desired result. The steps are those requiring physical manipulations of physical quantities. Usually, though not necessarily, these quantities take the form of electrical or magnetic signals capable of being stored, transferred, combined, compared, and otherwise manipulated. It has proven convenient at times, principally for reasons of common usage, to refer to these signals as bits, values, elements, symbols, characters, terms, numbers, or the like. It should be borne in mind, however, that all of these and similar terms are to be associated with the appropriate physical quantities and are merely convenient labels applied to these quantities. Unless specifically stated otherwise as apparent from the following discussions, terms such as "processing" or "computing" or "calculating" or "determining" or "displaying" or the like, refer to the action and processes of a computer system, or similar computing device, that manipulates and transforms data represented as physical (e.g., electronic) quantities within the computer system's registers and memories into other data similarly represented as physical quantities within the computer system memories or registers or other such information storage, transmission or display devices.
In the Figures, the same reference number is used throughout to refer to an identical component which appears in multiple Figures. Signals and connections may be referred to by the same reference number or label, and the actual meaning will be clear from its use in the context of the description.
The following detailed description is, therefore, not to be taken in a limiting sense, and the scope of the present invention is defined only by the appended claims.
As noted above, traditional models of value-added service delivery create an expensive up-front capital investment, as well as significant operational expenses that are associated with onsite installation and management of thousands of distributed devices. The results are service delivery delays, increased customer start-up costs and/or thinner service provider margins.
A system 2 for providing such services in a more cost-effective way is shown in
An example of an IP Service Delivery Platform 2 based on switch 10 is shown in
In one embodiment, switch 10 is a 26-slot, carrier-class solution that marries switching, routing, and computing resources with an open operating system, IPNOS. In one such embodiment, switch 10 leverages the architecture described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/661,130, filed Sep. 13, 2000 through the use of new IP Service Generators (IPSGs) (see
Service Providers can install up to 12 dual-slot IPSGs 20 in switch 10 of
In one embodiment, each IPSG 20 is a self-contained subsystem with an advanced service processing architecture for delivering network-based IP services such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and Managed Firewall at multi-gigabit per second rates (OC-48). The IPSG has been designed to match the capacity of Service Providers' edge transport build-outs so they can bundle value-added services seamlessly with their high-speed access services. In one embodiment, each IPSG 20 occupies two Universal slots when installed in a Service Processing Switch 10.
As noted above, the IPSG architecture produces the highest aggregate IP services processing rate in the industry by marrying hardware-based network processor capabilities with high-end computing techniques like parallel processing and pipelining. In one embodiment, an IPSG 20 optimizes performance through three application-tailored engines: a Virtual Routing Engine (VRE), a Virtual Services Engine (VSE), and an Advanced Security Engine (ASE).
The VRE enables packet classification, deep packet inspection and service customization for up to a million Access Control List (ACL)-level flows. The VSE performs parallel processing and pipelining, two high-end computing techniques that optimize network-based performance for third-party solutions such as Check Point FireWall-1� and McAfee anti-virus. The ASE rapidly accelerates encryption processing for EPSec site-to-site and dial VPNs through the use of specialized encryption hardware.
In one embodiment, each IPSG 20 is based on the same master architecture (see
Although the processing requirements for network access and trunk environments have many aspects in common, such as network media, packet classification, virtual routing and packet forwarding, they do have significant differences in terms of scalability, depth of packet processing, computing power requirements and network interface bandwidth. Again, by intelligently partitioning out the processing elements into application-tailored engines such as the VRE, VSE and ASE, and by distributing functions across them, the services and functional requirements of both trunk and access environments are unified in the same architecture.
In one embodiment, each IPSG 20 employs pipelining across and within all its elements—Line Interface/Network Module 24, Service Generator Fabric 22, the Midplane Interface 25, VRE, VSE and ASE. Packet processing functions in Layers 3-7 are notoriously computation and memory intensive. Switch 10 takes advantage of the fact that Layer 3 packet functions, and in particular IP forwarding, are repetitive and can be performed in dedicated hardware. The CPUs in each VRE, VSE and ASE are coupled with specialized hardware that serve to offload from the CPUs the processing of basic network functions such as routing and packet forwarding. This leaves more MIPS and memory bandwidth that can be dedicated to upper layer packet processing such as firewall, URL filtering, anti-virus, etc.
As is shown in
In one embodiment, a flow manager 42 residing on Line Interface/Network Module 24 and Midplane Interface 25 load balances service requests to the optimal VSE and VRE and supports robust priority/Weighted Round Robin (WRR) queuing capabilities. Virtual Routing Processor 30 provides hardware-assist capabilities for IP forwarding, MultiProtocol Label Switching (MPLS), Network Address Translation (NAT), Differentiated Services (DiffServ), statistics gathering, metering and marking. Virtual Service Controller 32 supports parallel processing and pipelining for optimum deep packet inspection and for third-party application computing. Security Manager 38 load balances and monitors IPSec sessions across a pool of four Hi/fn 7851 encryption chips for the highest capacity VPN processing possible.
In one embodiment, in order to achieve gigabit wire-speed packet data transfers from a physical port through the system and back out to another physical port and vice versa, all the system elements along the packet datapath throughout IPSG 20 are designed as full-duplex, high-bandwidth streaming interfaces. There is no packet data path bottleneck such as PCI or other peripheral IO interfaces. Using a full-duplex datapath of 32 bits and a minimum interface clock speed at 100 MHz, there is ample bandwidth headroom designed in to scale packet throughput to OC-48/STM-16 (2.4 Gbps) in each direction throughout the IPSG. Ample buffer size and the use of single-stage buffering techniques along the packet datapaths help absorb burstiness in IP traffic, as well as keeping a low packet loss ratio.
In one embodiment, flow manager 26 provides the following functions: wire-speed Layer 2 packet classification, wire-speed ingress packet flow direction, wire-speed egress priority queue-based congestion avoidance and bandwidth control and 50 ms intra-blade Automatic Protect Switching (APS) support for POS and ATM interfaces.
In one such embodiment, as is shown in
Layer 2 and 3 packet header parsing and error checking is performed on the fly as the packet enters Flow Manager 26 from the physical port. Layer 2 parsing supports PPP (RFC 1619, 1662), MLPPP (RFC 1990), Cisco HDLC, MultiProtocol over Frame Relay (RFC 2427), PPPoE (RFC 2516), Ethernet, VLAN, and MultiProtocol over ATM (RFC 2684).
Layer 3 parsing supports IP header definition (RFC 1812) and MPLS (IETF label standard). The result of this function is to ensure the packet is free of link layer and IP/MPLS header errors, to offset into the packet where the Layer 3 header begins and to determine what the Layer 3 protocol is (IP/MPLS/IS-IS). All this information is written into a system control header that Flow Manager 26 later uses to encapsulate the original packet.
Using a wire-speed table lookup mechanism, an ingress flow director within flow manager 26 assists traffic distribution by directing each incoming packet to one of several destination engines. The ingress flow director parses the Layer 2 header of each packet and extracts information to address a programmable SRAM-based lookup table 52. The extracted information is the packet's logical interface, which is associated with a Virtual Router (VR) in the Service Generator that contains the destination engine ID.
Using the lookup table result, Flow Manager 26 constructs an internal control header and prepends it to the incoming packet and sends the packet to Service Generator Fabric 22. Service Generator Fabric 22 looks at the destination field of the control header and determines to which of its client engines the packet should be sent. Software is responsible for initializing and updating the lookup table. Software gets information about the load of each engine by monitoring its internal states and packet statistics collected by the hardware circuits across engines. Programming an entry in the table is in the form of software writing an in-band high priority Programmed IO (PIO) message from an engine through Service Generator Fabric 22 into Flow Manager 26.
In one embodiment, hardware-assisted QoS mechanisms are distributed throughout the entire IPSG 20. In one such embodiment, egress flow controller 54 is responsible for priority queuing with congestion control using the WRED algorithm, as well as custom queue-based scheduling using a four-priority WRR algorithm. There are four different Priority Groups, each with absolute priority over subsequent groups (i.e., groups with a higher number). Group 4 has five queues and WRR is performed among those five queues to determine which queue is serviced when Group 4 is serviced. For the last four queues of Group 4, the weight per queue is a customer-configurable parameter.
The IPSG supports three levels of QoS: EF, AF and BE. EF provides premium-expedited service with low jitter and low delay. There are two types EF traffic: EF guaranteed and EF regular. EF guaranteed can be used by high priority traffic such as system network control and IP-based voice services. EF regular is lower priority than EF guaranteed, though still higher priority than all AF and BE traffic. AF traffic is higher priority than BE. Within AF, there are four subclasses: AF1, AF2, AF3 and AF4. These subclasses and BE are differentiated by weighted scheduling factors. A representative default priority queue QoS mapping is shown in
In one embodiment, there are two different types of Line interface/Network Modules in the IPSG: those with fixed-sized queues and those with variable-sized queues. Fixed-sized queue Line Interface/Network Modules have a total of eight queues with 256 KB per queue, all the queues sharing a 2 MB shadow memory SRAM. The queues are shared across all the ports of the interface.
The variable-sized queue Line Interface/Network Modules introduce the concept of linking buffers together to dynamically allocate different sized queues. There are up to 8,000 channels per interface (the number of channels will change depending on the interface selected). Each of these channels has eight priority levels that are mapped to eight separate queues for each channel, resulting in the 64,000 queues. Each queue created is actually a link of 1 Kbyte buffers. Each buffer holds either a single packet or a partial packet but never data from two different packets. Each of the eight queues in each channel is a dynamically sized linked list. Each list can have 255 buffers of 1,024 bytes. Additionally, there exists 128 MB of external SDRAM for packet storage. The 128,000 buffers in this SDRAM are shared among the 8,192 QoS channels.
The priority queues are mapped to both IETF DiffServ traffic classes as well as ATM Forum traffic classes.
Layer 3 and 4 traffic classification, the actual determination of which egress queue a packet should be sent to, is based on DiffServ Type of Service (TOS) field marking, classification based on IP header fields, metering and rate control, which all take place in the Virtual Routing Processor on the VRE. A representative queue configuration is shown in
The goal of the WRED algorithm is to randomly distribute the discarding of packets after a pre-determined level of congestion has been reached within the system. A discarded packet alerts the TCP layer that congestion is occurring in the system and that the sending side should back off its transmission of packets. Effective congestion control is time critical; in one embodiment, therefore, this function was placed completely in hardware. The alternative to WRED is known as "tail dropping", where significant numbers of packets are discarded at once causing the TCP layer to back off in waves, and thereby delivering poor bandwidth utilization.
For Line Interfaces/Network Modules 24 with fixed-sized queues, as a packet returns to an egress interface, it will be subject to the WRED drop determination algorithm. Based on the information in the internal control header, the queue number for the packet is determined. The probability of randomly dropping the packet is proportional to the average fill-level (fullness) of that queue and its software-programmable parameters such as Minimum Threshold (Minth) and Maximum Threshold (Maxth). The parameters are unique per priority queue and per drop preference. (Drop preference is described below. Drop preference is a result of DiffServ TOS field-based traffic marking and metering. There are three drop preferences: green, yellow and red. Red has the highest drop preference.).
The drop preferences offer three drop profiles (based on three drop preferences) for each priority queue. The Minth controls the onset of the random packet dropping. This means as the queue is filled with packets, if the average fill level exceeds the Minth, random packet dropping is kicked in. The Maxth controls the onset of total packet dropping. This means that as the average queue level exceeds Maxth, all subsequent packets will be dropped. By manipulating these two thresholds, the level of fullness in a queue is controlled. If the queue is completely filled, it will block further traffic from getting into the queue.
If the packet is not dropped, it will be queued into one of the priority queues in a 2 MB of external shared memory SRAM, based on the information in the control header. The three highest priority queues are addressed in order. These queues must be empty before traffic from the fourth priority group is addressed.
A two-priority WRR packet scheduler determines from which of the five medium to lower priority queues the next packet will be sent to the outbound network. The weight for each of the five queues covers 16 Kb and is in 8 byte units. Each weight is software programmable and can be changed any time. The weight controls how many 8 byte units can be scheduled out of each queue. Once the weight is exhausted, the scheduler will move on to serve the next queue. Sometimes the weight is exhausted while the packet is still being scheduled. In this case, the remaining amount of 8 byte units will be recorded and deducted from the weight the next time the queue is served again. This is to improve bandwidth control for mixed-size packet traffic, such as TCP/IP.
It should be noted that all the data transfers in the various sub-blocks (such as WRED, WRR) are pipelined for wire speed.
For Line Interfaces/Network Modules 24 with variable-sized queues, the WRED parameters are uniquely defined on a per channel basis, not on a per queue basis. Instead of looking at the average fill level of that queue, these Line Interfaces/Network Modules 24 look at the average number of consumed buffers of the given channel. When a linked list queue in these Line Interfaces/Network Modules has consumed 255 buffers, tail dropping will occur. If the packet is not dropped, it will be queued into one of the priority queues in a 128 MB of external SDRAM memory based on the information in the control header. The three highest priority queues are addressed in the same manner as mentioned above, except that the weighting of the Priority Group 4 is based on buffers rather than bytes.
For its POS and ATM interfaces, in one embodiment IPSG 20 provides 1+1 APS, a physical failover mechanism within a Network Module 24. The 1-port OC-12 POS Line Interface doesn't support APS failover mechanism because it is limited to only one port. On the other hand, the 2-port 1+1 OC-12 POS Network Module does provide the APS capability; only one port will be active at any one time with or without APS applied. When using the 4-port OC-3 POS Line Interface or 4-port OC-3 ATM Network Module, all ports can be active simultaneously; if APS is activated in one pair of ports, the other two ports can be active resulting in three active ports in the Network Module 24. Software is responsible for detecting the conditions (receipt of SONET Physical Layer protocol K1 and K2 control bytes) that indicate a link failure.
For the ingress direction, the software programs Network Module 24 circuits to direct ingress traffic from either the primary port or the protect port across the Service Generator Fabric 22. For the egress direction, the software programs the Network Module 24 circuits to mirror egress traffic onto both working and protect ports. The failover time meets the Bellcore-GR-253 standard of 50 ms. 1+1 APS is optional per port pair. For multi-port interfaces, each 1+1 APS port pair is independent of the others.
Service Generator Fabric 22 is the heart of IPSG 20. It is a fully meshed, 8-port shared memory switch that provides full-duplex communication between any pair of ports. The ports are non-blocking. All system-wide packet traffic as well as control messages pass through Service Generator Fabric 22. Service Generator Fabric 22 treats control messages with a higher priority than packet traffic. The Service Generator Fabric 22 employs a shared memory architecture with a total aggregated throughput of 51.2 Gbps. Ports can be attached to VREs, VSEs, ASEs, the Line Interface/Network Module 24 and the Midplane Interface 25.
The full-duplex communication link for each port pair runs at 3.2 Gbps in each direction, using a time-division streaming data interface protocol. In one embodiment, the time division allows the Service Generator Fabric 22 to serve each of eight input and output port with equal 32 byte size time slots, in round robin fashion, all at OC-48/STM-16+ rates. Other priority schemes can be implemented as needed.
In one embodiment, all the ports feeding data into and taking data out of the Service Generator Fabric 22 are store-and-forward to minimize the per packet transit time through the Service Generator Fabric 22.
When a packet is ready to be transferred from a Line Interface/Network Module 24 ingress to a destination VRE, it is streamed over to the Service Generator Fabric 22 shared memory in 32 byte chunks at OC-48/STM-16+ rates. Service Generator Fabric 22 examines the destination port's availability and then starts to stream the packet over to the destination port in 32 byte chunks at OC-48/STM-16+ rates.
At the same time, if a Service Generator Fabric port has a packet destined for a Line Interface/Network Module egress, it will also be streamed over to the Service Generator Fabric shared memory in 32 byte chunks at OC-48/STM-16+ rates. This time-shared cut-through protocol allows the shared memory to remain small (32 Kbytes).
Because the Service Generator Fabric is the single most traveled path by all packets, it has built in reliability. All port links are protected by Cyclical Redundancy Checking (CRC). CRC is an error detection mechanism that prevents bad packets from propagating beyond one pass through Service Generator Fabric 22.
As noted above, in one embodiment, the basic computing resources in a VSE and a VRE consist of 600 MHz IBM PowerPC 750CX CPUs. These CPUs offer advanced computing features such as two levels of internal caches and instruction execution optimization3. Each CPU delivers 1200 MIPS; a fully populated IPSG 20 can offer as much as 10,800 MIPS, and a fully loaded switch 10 can deliver 130,000 MIPS.
A powerful multi-processing CPU enables high-level software, applications and underlying computing processes to execute at the highest possible speed. These CPUs can also work efficiently together in parallel to share computing data structures and workload.
In order to deliver a world-class services switching platform that moves and processes packets at high rates, in addition to executing software programs and processes, the multiple CPUs on the VSE and VRE are coupled with the Virtual Service Controller for accelerating virtual services packet processing and the Virtual Routing Processor for accelerating virtual routing functions. In one embodiment, the VSE and VRE can be thought of having a unified architecture (see
Packet movement in and out of memory has been shown to be a bottleneck in server-based routers because the SDRAM-based memory subsystem is designed for the needs of data transfer, not packet transfer. Packet transfer does not use memory bandwidth as efficiently as data transfer. Sixty-four byte packets with random arrival and departure can cut memory efficiency by 40 percent or more. Moreover, in those routers, the packets originate and end on add-on I/O cards that are subject to I/O bus bottleneck. The typical I/O bus is a PCI-66, which at its best cannot support full OC-12/STM-4 rate.
In more conventional routers, e.g., Cisco routers, I/O bottleneck is eliminated but the CPU and memory subsystem performance is below that of server-based routers. These routers were not purpose-built to run services like VPNs, firewall or anti-virus. Furthermore, both types of routers cannot support more than a dozen routing instances in one box.
In one embodiment, these issues have been addressed within the multi-CPU memory subsystem by introducing advanced system memory and packet transfer control.
In one such embodiment, the packets in transit through the VSE or VRE are stored in the 1 GB external main memory 36, much like a server-based router. However, that is where the similarity ends. A server-based conventional router fetches network I/O packet transfer control information from software-controlled data structures in main memory across an I/O bus, typically a PCI bus. The same I/O bus is also used for packet transfer. In the IPSG 20 Virtual Service Controller 32, packet transfer control information is stored and managed at wire speed entirely in the local hardware. Software control of the data structures uses a separate interface and does not compete with actual packet transfer for main memory bandwidth. This way, main memory bandwidth is optimized for packet transfer.
The main memory bandwidth is still shared between data transfer (for CPU to run services) and packet transfer. The Virtual Service Controller includes a super high-performance (12.8 Gbps) memory controller. Innovative design technique using pipelined interface protocol and optimized memory access arbitration make this high performance possible. Both data and packet transfers can take advantage of this high bandwidth.
In one embodiment, the virtual routing function within the virtual routing processor 30 is micro-code based and supports a RISC-like instruction set. Packet classification and fast path packet forwarding are performed in hardware at wire speed, with the flexibility needed to stay current with the ever-evolving Internet standards. The CPUs are offloaded to dedicate more resources to running applications and software processes. The virtual routing function provides fast path packet forwarding for established flows. (In this embodiment, a flow is an ACL-level flow. An ACL is an ordered set of rules in a table that associates a group of packet header fields to the action that needs to be performed on such packets with matching header fields. For TCP/IP, for example, the header fields include internal control ID, IP source and destination addresses, TCP/UDP source and destination port numbers, IP TOS field and Layer 3 protocol field.)
The virtual routing function adapts design techniques from superscalar computing architecture, where there are a number of identical execution units in parallel, all executing the same program simultaneously but on different packets. Each unit is furthered pipelined into stages to allow overlapped packet processing. This is necessary to meet the gigabit wire-speed requirement for thousands of simultaneously active VRs.
A packet typically arrives from a Line Interface/Network Module 24 through the Service Generator Fabric 22 into one of the packet classifiers in the Virtual Routing Processor 30. In one embodiment, the packet's flow index is identified by extracting various Layer 2-4 fields of the packet header such as IP TOS, protocol, source address, destination address fields, TCP/UDP source and destination port fields. The packet classifier executes micro-code instructions to extract bit and byte fields and even perform Boolean functions for this purpose. In one embodiment, a hash function is applied to the contents of the fields to obtain an address into a flow cache storing a predetermined number of forward indexes.
Upon a match in the flow cache, a forward index is obtained to address another table that contains the blueprint for packet field manipulation, that is, packet processing. For example, the blueprint can specify the action for firewall filtering, which is to drop the packet. Another example is the act of routing, which includes substituting the Layer 2 destination address with next hop value, decrementing Time-To-Live (TTL) and performing IP header checksum adjustment. A third example is NAT, which includes substituting original IP source and/or destination address, TCP/UDP source and/or destination port values. A fourth example is DiffServ TOS field marking, flow metering and rate control. A fifth example is to update packet statistics to support event logging. Yet another example is GRE tunneling, which includes the encapsulation of the original packet header by another packet header.
The blueprint can also specify that the packet be processed, such as the case of URL filtering or anti-virus scanning, which requires parsing of packet payload by a general CPU. Before a flow is set up by software, all packets arriving at the packet classifiers will be sent to software for first time forwarding. Software running on the CPUs 34 sets up routing tables and forwarding information bases as well as the packet processing action table entries associated with each established flow. Thereafter, all packets will be sent to the outbound network interface without ever being touched by software, as long as the flows they belong to are cached in the flow cache. In one embodiment, VRE performance is at 3 Million packets per second (Mpps).
The routing processes described above is described in greater detail in "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ROUTING TRAFFIC THROUGH A VIRTUAL ROUTER-BASED NETWORK SWITCH," the descriptions of which are incorporated herein by reference.
DiffServ QoS support in Virtual Routing Processor 30 includes TOS field update and rate control. Rate control includes packet rate metering, marking and dropping functions. Rate control comes in several flavors, which are not mutually exclusive: Ingress rate control based on the VI, rate control based on the flow to which the packet belongs, and egress rate control after the packet is routed and forwarded.
In one embodiment, rate metering and marking is implemented completely in hardware for each flow. The hardware supports the concept of the color-blind and color-aware packet. In color-blind mode, the incoming packet color is ignored, and any color can be added to the packet. In color-aware mode, the incoming packet color is taken into consideration. In this case, the incoming packet can be green, yellow or red. Green packets have the lowest probability of being dropped and will be dropped last if necessary. If the incoming packet is green, the packet can stay green or it can be downgraded to yellow or red; a packet can never be upgraded.
The two-rate three-color metering based on RFC 2698 marks its packets green, yellow or red. A packet is marked red if it exceeds the Peak Information Rate (PIR). Otherwise it is marked either yellow or green depending on whether it exceeds or doesn't exceed the Committed Information Rate (CIR). It is useful, for example, for ingress policing of a service where a peak rate needs to be enforced separately from a committed rate. The packet's color is encoded in the internal control header of the packet and will be interpreted by Flow Manager 26 for congestion control purpose. The metering context is stored in main memory. The metering context contains status and state information, such as number of bytes metered green, yellow and red, the PIR in bytes/time slot, CIR in bytes/time slot, etc. This metering context is updated every time a packet is processed.
The QoS processes are described in "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR HIERARCHICAL METERING IN A VIRTUAL ROUTER BASED NETWORK SWITCH," "METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR A DISTRIBUTED PROVIDER EDGE," and "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR ROUTING TRAFFIC THROUGH A VIRTUAL ROUTER-BASED NETWORK SWITCH," the descriptions of which are incorporated herein by reference.
The Advanced Security Engine (AES) will be described next.
Creating, terminating and transporting IPSec tunnels is an integral part of IPSec-based VPNs, and encryption, decryption and authentication processes are an integral part of any secure transaction. These are all notoriously computation-intensive functions. The ASE consists of four Hi/fn 7851 encryption accelerators, a Hi/fn 6500 key accelerator and a Security Manager 38 (see
The Hi/fn 7851 security processor features an embedded RISC CPU that performs all the packet header and trailer processing at 155 Mbps for back-to-back minimum size packets and at 622 Mbps for back-to-back maximum size 1500 byte packets. For each Hi/fn 7851, a 64 MB SDRAM is used to store over 16,000 active security associations (with a theoretical maximum of 230,000). The Hi/fi 7851 processor provides the following functions for IPSec: 3DES/RC4 encryption/decryption for packets to/from access (subscriber) side, IPSec header (ESP/AH) encapsulation and parsing, SHA or MD-5 authentication service for packets to/from access (subscriber) side, support for Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) with RSA/Diffie-Hellman/DSA key algorithms and, optionally, LZS/MPPC-based compression/decompression for packets to/from access (subscriber) side.
Packets that have been classified by the VRE arrive at the ASE for IPSec tunnel creation or termination. Security Manager 38 decodes the security session ID for the packet. Then it strips off the system control header and stores it in a SRAM. Security Manager 38 creates and prepends a Hi/fn command message header to the original packet, directing it to the corresponding Hi/fn 7851. The Hi/fn 7851 performs authentication and encryption or decryption services. In the case of encryption, encryption is applied to the IP packet and an IPSec ESP/AH header is prepended to it. The EPSec header is pieced together from information contained in the original packet control header as well as the Hi/fn results header. This ensures the QoS information in the original EP header is preserved.
At a given time, all four Hi/fn 7851s can be in various states of processing of up to a total of four packets. The streaming bus is non-blocking; that is, a smaller packet destined to one Hi/fn 7851 will not be blocked behind a large packet to another Hi/fn 7851. This ensures that the ASE optimizes the aggregate throughput of all the Hi/fn 7851s combined.
The Midplane Interface 25 is where packets leave the IPSG to go to another IPSG 20 or where packets arrive from another IPSG 20. In one embodiment, Midplane Interface 25 is a 22 Gbps dual counter-rotating ring structure that is redundant, high performance and deterministic in the transmission of packets. The Midplane Interface includes a Flow Manager 26 with the same queuing and congestion control features discussed in connection with Line Interface/Network Module 24 above.
The IPNOS discussed above has an architectural structure that dovetails perfectly with the IPSG architecture. IPSG 20 has been designed to deliver tailored hardware processing resources to address specific IP services, and IPNOS provides the framework to take advantage of those hardware capabilities. IPNOS is a distributed, object-oriented, multi-processor operating system designed to be scalable by dynamically allocating service elements to the best available resources. All IP services, networks and even physical resources (e.g., processors and access circuits) are managed as objects or groups of objects by IPNOS.
As a service processing OS, IPNOS builds a foundation for customized subscriber-level IP services through the VR concept. IPNOS creates a VR as an object group and has the capacity to create tens of thousands of object groups. As the name implies, an object group is a group of independent objects (of the same or different types). A single object group can contain tens of objects. There are a number of different types of objects in IPNOS: device driver object, link layer object, TCP/IP object, application object, etc.
The object model that IPNOS employs conforms roughly to the standard OSI model for networks (see
One of the pieces of data for each object is the type of processing resource it needs to execute. Thus, when the Object Manager is asked to instantiate a new object, it knows what kind of resource it needs and can draw from the available pool of those tailored resources instead of leveraging only generally available CPUs. For example, when an IPSec tunnel needs to be created, the object group (a VR) requests a new IPSec object to be created on an available ASE. This ability to dynamically distribute processing to tailored resources allows IPNOS to optimize all the processing power designed into the system. In addition, it enables some of the parallelism for packet processing that gives IPSG 20 its ability to operate at wire speed.
This process is described in greater detail in "SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING ROUTING IN A VIRTUAL ROUTER SYSTEM," described above, the description of which is incorporated herein by reference.
A step-by-step description of a representative packet flow through IPSG 20 will be described next. The illustration in
1. An 802.1q VLAN Ethernet packet arrives at a Gigabit Ethernet input port on the Line Interface/Network Module 24. The Flow Manager 26 programs the steering table look-up and decides which VLAN goes to which VRE. Flow Manager 26 tags the packet with an internal control header and transfers it from the Line Interface/Network Module 24 across the Service Generator Fabric 22 to the selected VRE.
2. Upon arrival at the VRE, the packet enters the Virtual Service Controller 32 for deep packet classification. Based on the instructions in the Virtual Service Controller's micro-code, various fields of the packet header, i.e., IP source and destination addresses, UDP/TCP source and destination port numbers, IP protocol field, TOS field, IPSec header and SPI field are extracted. An ACL flow associated with the packet is identified. A flow cache is consulted to find out whether the packet should be forwarded in software or hardware. (In this scenario, the packet is to be processed in hardware and an index to the packet processing action cache is obtained.) The ingress VI metering and statistics are registered as part of the ingress flow processing.
3. The packet is deposited via high-speed Direct Memory Access (DMA) into the VRE's main memory and then becomes accessible to the Virtual Routing Processor 30.
4. Virtual Routing Processor 30 retrieves the packet, identifies the packet processing actions that can be achieved in hardware and then performs those actions, such as time-to-live decrement, IP header checksum adjustment and IP forwarding patch matching. The egress statistics counters are updated.
5. The packet is forwarded to the ASE.
6. In the ASE, the packet gets encrypted and time-to-live is decremented. The ASE performs encryption and prepends an IPSec tunnel header.
7. The IPSec tunneled packet is handed back to the Sub VR in the VRE, which decides where to forward the packet (in this case, to the SP VR in VRE-2).
8. As the packet leaves the VRE-1 for the SP VR in VRE-2, the following are processed: a. Egress VI statistics, b. VI metering and marking, c. VI maximum transmit unit enforcement, and d. Packet fragmentation (if necessary).
9. The packet arrives at the SP VR in VRE-2. It goes to the hardware FIB lookup, gets forwarded through the SP VR interface toward the SP core. At the egress, VI statistics and metering are performed.
10. The egress Flow Manager 26 applies priority queuing based on DiffServ marking and transmits the packet out of IPSG 20.
Systems and method for providing IP services have been described. The systems and methods described provide advantages over previous systems.
Although specific embodiments have been illustrated and described herein, it will be appreciated by those of ordinary skill in the art that any arrangement which is calculated to achieve the same purpose may be substituted for the specific embodiments shown. This application is intended to cover any adaptations or variations of the present invention.
The terminology used in this application is meant to include all of these environments. It is to be understood that the above description is intended to be illustrative, and not restrictive. Many other embodiments will be apparent to those of skill in the art upon reviewing the above description. Therefore, it is manifestly intended that this invention be limited only by the following claims and equivalents thereof.
|Citing Patent
|Filing date
|Publication date
|Jun 3, 2004
|Oct 20, 2009
|Juniper Networks, Inc.
|Constraint-based label switched path selection within a computer network
|Sep 7, 2009
|Jul 20, 2010
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Fault tolerant routing in a non-hot-standby configuration of a network routing system
|Jun 16, 2008
|Oct 19, 2010
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Distributed virtual system to support managed, network-based services
|May 17, 2009
|Feb 1, 2011
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Scalable IP-services enabled multicast forwarding with efficient resource utilization
|Jul 23, 2009
|Feb 15, 2011
|Juniper Networks, Inc.
|Traffic engineering using extended bandwidth accounting information
|Jul 29, 2006
|Feb 15, 2011
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Identifying nodes in a ring network
|Aug 7, 2009
|Mar 22, 2011
|Nara Rajagopalan
|Managing interworking communications protocols
|Sep 3, 2007
|Apr 26, 2011
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Hardware-accelerated packet multicasting in a virtual routing system
|Feb 12, 2009
|Jul 3, 2012
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Scalable IP-services enabled multicast forwarding with efficient resource utilization
|Jun 25, 2009
|Oct 2, 2012
|Juniper Networks, Inc.
|RSVP-passive interfaces for traffic engineering peering links in MPLS networks
|Nov 6, 2012
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Network packet steering via configurable association of processing resources and network interfaces
|Dec 24, 2009
|Feb 19, 2013
|Contextream Ltd.
|Grid routing apparatus and method
|Aug 21, 2008
|Jun 18, 2013
|Contextream Ltd.
|System and methods for distributed quality of service enforcement
|Aug 13, 2009
|Jan 14, 2014
|Juniper Networks, Inc.
|Constraint-based label switched path selection within a computer network
|Jun 28, 2012
|Jul 22, 2014
|Juniper Networks, Inc.
|Weighted equal-cost multipath
|Oct 30, 2007
|Jan 6, 2015
|Contextream Ltd.
|Grid router
|Feb 4, 2014
|Apr 21, 2015
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Hardware-accelerated packet multicasting
|Jul 24, 2013
|Apr 28, 2015
|Fortinet, Inc.
|Service processing switch
|Jun 28, 2012
|Jun 30, 2015
|Juniper Networks, Inc.
|Path weighted equal-cost multipath
|Jul 7, 2011
|Aug 22, 2013
|Gnodal Limited
|Apparatus & method
|U.S. Classification
|370/397, 370/395.53
|International Classification
|Cooperative Classification
|European Classification


text:
VIEWS: 8 PAGES: 14 CATEGORY: Market and Industry Reports POSTED ON: 3/19/2011 Public Domain
ICD Research's Personal Care Retailing in Colombia: Market Snapshot to 2015 is the easiest way to find the headline figures for the category. The report contains historical and forecast sales value as well as the category's share of the overall market in which it is classified.
This report is aimed at those who want just data and figures without analysis. It does not contain the analysis which can be found in our more comprehensive Databook or Market Intelligence reports.
Personal Care Retailing in Colombia: Market Snapshot to 2015 Reference code: RT0774MS Published: March 2011 www.icd-research.com ICD Research John Carpenter House 7 Carmelite Street London EC4Y 0BS United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 20 7336 5200 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7336 5201 © ICD Research. This report is a licensed product and is not to be photocopied TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................................... 5 1.1 What is this Report About? ............................................................................................................... 5 1.2 Definitions ........................................................................................................................................ 5 2 CATEGORY OVERVIEW ........................................................................................................ 8 3 SALES DATA ......................................................................................................................... 9 3.1 Sales Value 2005-10 ........................................................................................................................ 9 3.2 Category Analysis, Sales 2010........................................................................................................10 3.3 Sales Value Forecast 2010-15 ........................................................................................................11 3.4 Category Analysis, Sales Forecast 2015 .........................................................................................12 4 APPENDIX ............................................................................................................................ 13 4.1 Research Methodology ...................................................................................................................13 4.1.1 Additional Notes ........................................................................................................................................ 13 4.2 Contact Us ......................................................................................................................................13 4.3 About ICD Research .......................................................................................................................14 4.4 Disclaimer .......................................................................................................................................14 Personal Care Retailing in Colombia: Market Snapshot to 2015 Published Mar 2011 © ICD Research. This report is a licensed product and is not to be photocopied Page 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES Table 1: ICD Research Retail Channel Definitions ......................................................................................................................5 Table 2: ICD Research Retail Category Definitions .....................................................................................................................6 Table 3: Personal Care Retailing in Colombia, Sales Value (US$ Billion), 2005-10 .......................................................................9 Table 4: Food & Grocery Retailing in Colombia, Category Analysis by Sales, 2010 .....................................................................10 Table 5: Personal Care Retailing in Colombia, Sales Value Forecast (US$ Billion), 2010-15 ......................................................11 Table 6: Food & Grocery Retailing in Colombia, Category Analysis by Sales, 2015.....................................................................12 Personal Care Retailing in Colombia: Market Snapshot to 2015 Published Mar 2011 © ICD Research. This report is a licensed product and is not to be photocopied Page 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Personal Care Retailing in Colombia, Sales Value (US$ Billion), 2005-10 ......................................................................9 Figure 2: Food & Grocery Retailing in Colombia, Category Analysis by Share, 2010 ...................................................................10 Figure 3: Personal Care Retailing in Colombia, Sales Value Forecast (US$ Billion), 2010-15 .....................................................11 Figure 4: Food & Grocery Retailing in Colombia, Category Analysis by Share, 2015 ...................................................................12 Personal Care Retailing in Colombia: Market Snapshot to 2015 Published Mar 2011 © ICD Research. This report is a licensed product and is not to be photocopied Page 4 INTRODUCTION 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 What is this Report About? This report is the result of ICD Research's extensive market research covering the Colombian retail industry. It provides detailed historic and forecast retail market values segmented at category level. 1.2 Definitions The retail industry can be segmented into the following channels and categories: Table 1: ICD Research Retail Channel Definitions Channel group Channel Definition Discount Retailers Cash & Carries & Cash & carries sell from a wholesale warehouse to customers (small retailers, Warehouse Clubs professional users, etc) who pay on the spot and transport goods away themselves. Warehouse clubs are no-frills stores that sell discounted goods to members who pay an annual fee. Delivered wholesale sales are not included. Discount, Variety Store & The discount/variety stores category includes all sales through stores that sell General Merchandise inexpensive items (especially cleaning supplies, toys, and confectionery) at a single or Retailers limited number of price points and are named for the price of the merchandise (e.g. dollar store, pound store). General merchandise includes all sales through stores that offer a wider selection of primarily non-food goods at inexpensive prices. General Retailers Convenience Stores & Gas Includes all sales through stores of an area generally less than 300 sq m that Stations specialize in a limited range of Food & Grocery products designed primarily for convenience-seeking consumers. This category also includes sales in retail outlets attached to gas stations where fuel is the main revenue driver, kiosks, and newsstands. Department Stores Includes all sales through multi-category retailers, focusing primarily on non-grocery categories with distinct departments specializing in defined product areas. Examples include Bloomingdale's, Macy's, John Lewis, El Corte Ingles Hypermarkets & Hypermarkets/mass merchandisers include all sales through retailers with a floor area Supermarkets of over 2,500 sq m that carry full lines of both grocery and general merchandise (e.g. Wal-Mart). Supermarkets include all sales through retailers with floor area of 300 sq m -2,500 sq m that offer a wide, departmentalized range of grocery, and may carry some general merchandise lines (e.g. Sainsbury's, Kroger). Vending Machines Includes paid-for sales from all vending machines not located within a store (e.g. public places, workplaces, pubs and bars) Other General Retailers Includes other generalist retail channels not included in t
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subset: commoncrawl


text:
Giant Food and home-delivery affiliate Peapod are stepping up their services, as more grocers and online retailers offer customers the convenience of having groceries delivered.
Starting Wednesday, customers who order groceries online from Peapod can pick them up at Giant's first stand-alone site in Maryland, at 8500 Connecticut Ave., Chevy Chase.
Customers have been able to have groceries delivered to their homes for a fee in Montgomery County since 2003, said Peg Merzbacher, a Peapod spokeswoman. There is a minimum order of $60 for home delivery, but there is no minimum or fee if customers pick up their groceries.
The first pickup locations at Giant grocery stores in Montgomery opened in June. There are six — two each in Rockville and Germantown, along with ones in Derwood and Chevy Chase.
The seventh site in Chevy Chase also will have a Giant gasoline station that likely will open later this week, Giant Food spokesman Jamie Miller said.
"It's been well-received," Miller said of the delivery service. "Customers like having this convenience."
Landover-based Giant Food and Skokie, Ill.-based Peapod are both subsidiaries of Dutch retail giant Royal Ahold.
Pleasanton, Calif.-based Safeway, which also has numerous stores in Montgomery County, has offered home delivery in the Washington region since 2005, said Craig Muckle, a company spokesman. Currently, Safeway only offers delivery with no in-store pickup for online purchases.
"There is a pretty strong core of people who use it," Muckle said. "Some people have challenges going to the store, so it fits their needs."
The minimum order for Safeway's service is $49. The fee for purchases of less than $150 is $12.95, though first orders for new customers are free, according to the website.
The delivery fee for home service with Peapod is from $7.95 to $9.95; the lower fee is for orders more than $100.
Walmart began testing a delivery service for items that include toys and electronics last year in certain markets, such as Northern Virginia. The service is not yet available in Montgomery County, according to its website.
Services such as Netgrocer.com also deliver groceries to customers for a fee. Amazon.com has delivered groceries in the Seattle area for several years and is expanding to other markets.
Online grocery shopping is one of several trends that is changing the face of supermarkets, which also face competition from club stores, dollar stores and farmers markets, according to a new report by Rockville market research firm Packaged Facts. About half of shoppers use online or in-store coupons and two-thirds buy groceries on sale, according to the firm.
"Economic, demographic, lifestyle and technological changes have created not only a fertile environment," David Sprinkle, research director for Packaged Facts, said in a statement, "but the absolute necessity for new concepts to engage shoppers ... and reinvent food and beverage retailing."
Giant's stand-alone site is formatted like a fast-food drive-through, in which customers remain in their vehicles as workers load their groceries. Giant has 10 other gas stations in Maryland, Miller said.
Peapod already has tested stand-alone sites in Illinois and New York. The company also has partnerships with Stop & Shop and Giant-Carlisle.
Peapod does not now have pickup delivery sites at Frederick County Giant stores, but the companies are "continually reviewing where to put locations," Miller said. "We do internal research to determine where there will be significant demand."


text:
JOHNSONBURG – The Johnsonburg Municipal Authority held a special meeting yesterday evening to accept a bid for a pressure-reducing vault to be installed along West Center Street.
Authority members approved a bid submitted by Continental Construction for $93,250 with expected completion to be reached in mid-August.
Two other bids were proposed for a pressure reducing vault in the amounts of $144,215 from Guyer Brothers and $125,000 from Roman Excavating.
The installation of a pressure reducing vault along West Center Street was one of the stipulations the Department of Environmental Protection [DEP] required the municipal authority to complete in order for them to increase the amount of water that they can sell to the Hunt Marcellus Operating Company.
Pick up a copy of the Thursday, July 7, 2011 edition of The Ridgway Record for more.
[1] http://www.ridgwayrecord.com/sites/default/files/jburg ma COLOR.jpg


text:
- Academic Philosophy
- Degree Requirements
- Graduate Program
- Areas of Study
- Courses
- Faculty
- Off Campus Study
- Internships & Career Services
- Academic Calendar
- Student Work
Related Links
Internships & Career Services
As part of the requirements for a BA in human ecology, students must complete a 400-hour, off-campus internship. An internship is a practical experience in applying academics to the world of work and gives students the opportunity to explore career options. An internship should expose students to the following:
- Making decisions regarding career options
- Marketing themselves to potential employers
- Carrying out the duties and responsibilities of a job
- Participating as part of a larger community work force
- Bringing those new perspectives back to campus to share with classmates and faculty
- Reflecting on how the internship experience relates to human ecology
Students gain practical experience by taking on the responsibilities of a full-time job where they acquire skills other than those learned in the classroom. Although students may choose a credit or noncredit internship, all students must:
- Submit a proposal outlining not only the goals of the internship but also how the internship relates to the student's career goals
- Write a report assessing the internship, listing new knowledge gained, and showing its relevance to human ecology
- Give a 10-minute presentation to the community.
Internships for either credit or noncredit require a full-term enrollment off campus. Students completing the internship for credit pay the same tuition as they would for three courses since for-credit internships count as enrollment. Students opting to complete a noncredit internship pay no tuition. Although in both credit and noncredit internships students must work at least 400 hours, many report working considerably more than 40 hours a week, and this 400 hours does not include the time it takes to research potential internships, write a proposal and final report, and develop a presentation.
Recent Internship Sponsors
- Acadia National Park
Bar Harbor, Maine
Fringe Festival
Edinburgh, Scotland
Health Clinic of Greater Cleveland
Cleveland, Ohio
The Jackson Laboratory
Bar Harbor, Maine
Peregrine Hacking Project
Boise, Idaho
Quebec Labrador Foundation
Ipswich, Massachusetts
South-Central University for Nationalities
Wuhan, China
Teton Science School
Cody, Wyoming
Tilbury House Publishing
Gardner, Maine


text:
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text:
About a month ago I was on an 8 day backpacking trip through Shenandoah National Park. I'd arranged to have a friend meet me for re-supply halfway through. Unfortunately, I'd fallen in with a fast crowd and was 27 miles past where we'd arranged to meet. Fortunately, I was carrying my cell phone, which typically has about a week of standby time. Unfortunately, away from civilization the signal is much weaker, so unbeknownst to me I only had about a day and a half of standby in this case. I found this out on day three. I began thinking about backpackable solar charging solutions. I did manage to yogi a cell phone and get ahold of her, but in a less busy park things might have gotten really out of hand.
I'd had fantastic weather until day six, when I got hit with real backpacking weather: thunderstorms and cold, driving rain. When I got home, my digi-cam had water damage. It mostly works, but sometimes won't turn on or turn off now, and the LCD has cloudy water spots, this despite being inside a ziplock bag inside my pack. I began thinking about lightweight waterproof electronics enclosures.
Then, I started thinking "Hey, I can do both at the same time!" Nine prototypes later, this is what I had, the "Rain or Shine Solar Charger." In addition to being useful for backpacking, this charger attaches with parachute buckles, so you could attach it to a messenger bag, or a bookbag, or hang it in your kitchen window. It takes about ten hours to charge a typical cell phone, but it's a storage charger, so you could leave the charger in the sun to collect energy during the day, then plug the cell hone in at night to charge from the stored energy.
This is a fairly complicated project, which will likely stretch either your sewing skills or your electronics skills, but the results are well worth it.
If you'd rather skip all that and simply purchase this one, the Etsy link is http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=6464822
Step 18 Testint Testing 1 2 3
Still a great ible
Although, its probably a good idea to install a diode between the solar panels and the cigarette adapter because I have seen instances where cheap cell phone battery chargers still drain the battery of the cell phone even when they are plugged into a cigarette adapter when the car isn't running. Diodes are super cheap and easy to install, so it shouldn't be too difficult. The regulator IS the cigarette adapter that changes the voltage to a normal level for your cell phone.
The black box or end of the connector contains the transformer, diodes, and anything else that would prevent you from overcharging or damaging your battery pack.
Thanx for the instruction i had in plans to make a exactly similar last summer but now it will be finished'
What I did was plug the panel into one of those car booster packs, let it charge all day, go to work... whatever. Then when I got home, I would run my laptop off of the charged booster pack through an inverter. (stay off my case about the waste of time going from DC-AC-DC, i know, this was an experiment) It worked great! The only thing i didn't do was charge the laptop off of the booster pack or run it at full CPU. These two things would kill the booster pack very fast! The booster pack usually died almost fully, I could have extended this charge by bypassing the extra step (DC-AC-DC). I was up north working and this was a little experiment I did to stop myself from going nuts with boredom... (no soldering for 2 MONTHS!)
-describes considerations in designing a system of similar size/use.


text:
This 95 minute documentary by Stewart Halpern takes a look at the Miss Gay America pageant in which 52 men strive to create the most seamless and convincing illusion of feminine beauty. With all hormone and surgical enhancements banned from the competition, contestants rely entirely on tricks of makeup and wardrobe, graded on their ingenuity as well as beauty. Following the individual experiences of five top contenders, the film examines the work that goes into striving for the title, as well as the motivations that drive each pageantee.~ Cammila Albertson, All Movie Guide
Produced by: Ron Davis, Stewart Halpern
Directed by: Ron Davis, Stewart Halpern
Written by: Ron Davis, Stewart Halpern
Running time: 1hr 35min
|Theaters for Today
Pick a day
on this day.


text:
Totally agree dcnr226, no one argues Hartlines merit, its just for the dolphins he is not worth 6 million dollars, better spent on two rookies with potential.......
Totally agree dcnr226, no one argues Hartlines merit, its just for the dolphins he is not worth 6 million dollars, better spent on two rookies with potential.......
I'm not saying he'll ever be as good as Nelson, what I'm saying is using TD numbers from any WRs first 3 seasons is not a valid argument for labeling a player a bust.
Hartline has the worst balance of any starting WR his size that I can remember. He's good route runner, and he does some things well. But his balance will always prevent him from accumulating YAC, high-pointing the ball, not falling at random, embarrassing times to fall. All kidding aside, you can't be explosive if you're always falling down!
Jerry Rice had the best balance of any WR I've ever seen. There are some WR's in this draft class with really good balance - especially next to Hartline. We want to be explosive at that position, don't we? I feel like everyone has been begging for it. Hartline is among the least explosive WR's in the NFL. That's not to say that he completely sucks. He works hard and smart to get open. I have a lot of respect for how he's maximizing his talents, but I care about the Dolphins more than I do his personal story. Bess can be our resident yard-stick mover. Everyone else can be explosive - in one way or another.
I agree that there is usually a learning curve with young receivers. However, there is also usually a clear progression that you can see. I can't honestly say I have seen that with Hartline. I'm not going to go nuts over the gaudy catch and yardage totals last year, because, as I said before, he was the de facto top option and was guaranteed to have a ton of balls thrown his way. The guy will never have RAC ability, he has shown a tendency to be allergic to the end zone, and he will almost surely see his number of targets significantly reduced as they upgrade the WR corps.
Does he have value to the team? Absolutely. Is he worth 5 million or thereabouts? Hell no, I say. We don't need two stick-mover types. Not if you want the offense to dramatically improve. Bess is enough.


text:
Midwest Living Review
Set in a quiet area of suburban St. Louis, Laumeier Sculpture Park captures imaginations with a wide variety of sculptures from all over the world. Be sure to grab a free map before exploring the lush 105-acre park and its trails. Maps include helpful drawings of the sculptures so you'll know what you're looking at. Some of our favorite sculptures include a large fiberglass eye aptly named "Eye" by American-born Tony Tasset and the unsuspecting "Man with Briefcase" located near the head of the wooded nature trail. Children will especially love the playful and colorful sculptures in the designated children's sculpture garden, but nearly every piece of artwork has enough character to impress even the most skeptical visitor. Be sure to peruse the Museum Shop for works by local and regional artists. Rent an audio tour, which provides additional background information to 20 of the park's more popular sculptures.


text:
March 08, 2013
2013 Distinguished Alumni Award
March 06, 2013
The Artists, like the Staff of the Label, are All MU Students
Acclaimed novelist and Story Writer
Acclaimed Novelist and Story Writer
March 04, 2013
A Folk Supergroup, in Sublime Session at Monmouth U
March 01, 2013
February 19, 2013
Spring 2013 Musical Production
February 18, 2013
Introducing COREiculum: "Where the Freshman 15 is an Elective!
February 15, 2013
Documentary Chronicling Effort to "Green" Public School Diet
February 13, 2013
Ireland's Premier Singer-Activist Brings Music and Message to Monmouth U
February 07, 2013
MU Collaborates with Local Schools, Mayors, & Community Leaders to Promote Literacy
Shawn Mullins, Mindy Smith Visit Monmouth U in March 2013
February 06, 2013
Completed Applications Must be Received by June 30
February 04, 2013
Andrew is a Graphic Design Intern at CBS Sports.
January 29, 2013
Walter Dean Myers, National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, is Keynote Speaker


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Klamath Falls, Ore. -- While Klamath County is facing a serious drought, steps are being taken to make sure that livestock won't go thirsty this summer.
Farmers and ranchers are likely to face water cutbacks and shutoff's over the next few months but the Oregon Water Resources Commission is offering some relief. Scott White, the Klamath Basin Watermaster, said "the exception is they have allowed stock water and human consumption as a preference. It's not subject to regulation for a call for water from a senior water user."
Mountain snow pack levels for the Klamath Basin are only at 23 percent of average.
It's unclear what impact drought conditions may have on water availability at Crater Lake.


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Joan Ordiway, 81, of 94 Lincoln St., Ridgway, died Friday, Nov. 16, 2012.
She had the benefit of kind help at generations and Pine Crest over the past months.
This was only fair since she had been kind and helpful to others her entire life, especially young Air Force wives.
She is survived by her husband, Vernon; sons Lester and Frank; a sister, Sarha; and a niece, Sondra.
Her body has been donated to the anatomical board.


text: Items 25 to 36 of 189 total View 12 / 24 / 48 Previous 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 ... 16 Next Excellent Product By Todd on 9/6/2014 Todd would recommend this product to a friend I had been using another brand of coral food recommended by my LFS with ok results. So I decided to try the BRS Reef Chili because everything I have been purchasing from BRS going on a year now that they recommend has performed like they said it would. This product did also I feed every other day one day the brand my LFS recommended and the next the Reef Chili. On the day I feed the Reef Chili I can see the coral responding better to the Reef Chili. Its Reef Chili From here on! All in one. By Chavinpat on 8/13/2014 Chavinpat would recommend this product to a friend I broadcast feed my whole tank. My fishes and corals love them. Another home run from BRS! By Brent W. on 8/4/2014 Brent W. would recommend this product to a friend I have had the Reef Chilli for about 2 weeks(using 1-2/week). All corals readily take up the particles and swell up the next day! I have tried to feed a bombardment of different coral foods to my lepestrea, this is the only food it will except for me anyways. The first time I fed the Chilli to it I couldn't even recognize it, it was so pumped and fleshy. This product WILL take forever to use it all. Alittle goes a very long way. Thanks again BRS!!!! Loves it By q on 7/16/2014 q would recommend this product to a friend all of my corals loves it. great product SPS, LPS corals and fish love it By Paul on 6/2/2014 Paul would recommend this product to a friend Have been feeding the tank for about 2 yrs now, both LPS & SPS healthy and growing nicely. Fish love it too - my wrasse goes crazy catching the larger of the small particles if I broadcast feed during day cycle. Typically I mix it in a small container with tank water, spot feed several SPS with pipette, then broadcast the rest during night cycle. Great By Tom on 5/2/2014 Tom would recommend this product to a friend I have been using this for about a month now and I have my mushroom almost double in size! All the corals love it, by far the best coral food I have tried. Awesome By Benjamin on 4/10/2014 Benjamin would recommend this product to a friend I mix it in with frozen food, and broadcast feed my whole tank. everyone seems to love it. Corals Love It! By 5Bucks on 3/21/2014 5Bucks would recommend this product to a friend Very easy to use. Nice that it comes with the applicator bottle and little measuring spoon. I target feed Duncan's and others. Been doing it every other day for 3 weeks and noticing accelerated growth Excellent By Twhaddon on 3/13/2014 Twhaddon would recommend this product to a friend My corals look forward to this stuff. They all start to really extend when I use it. Thanks Quality Stuff By Bradley on 3/12/2014 Bradley would recommend this product to a friend All of my corals really seem to like this stuff. Polys extended and reaching. Nessarius snails explode from the sand bed when this stuff hits the water. Works great in my system. Great Coral Food By Tim on 3/9/2014 Tim would recommend this product to a friend I've had tanks for years and never used Reef Chili. Big mistake. Yes, not using this stuff is a mistake. I've been using it every 3 days for about 5 weeks and I've noticed better polyp extension and faster growth. Also, this small bottle will probably last well over a year. Well worth it. ExCellent By MykDoyle on 3/8/2014 MykDoyle would recommend this product to a friend This stuff is amazing! My corals are looking the best they have ever been! Thanks BRS for another great product Write Your Own Review You're reviewing: BRS Reef Chili Coral Food *How do you rate this product? *Would you recommend this product to a friend? Yes No *Nickname *Summary of Your Review *Review Submit Review


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Erykah Badu Feels Violated by Flaming Lips' 'Tasteless' NSFW Video
Based on the reactions we saw, people either loved or hated the Flaming Lips' nudity-filled definitely NSFW video for "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face," which featured Erykah Badu and her younger sister Nayrok. Now one thing is for certain -- both Badus definitely hated it.
In a lengthy Twitter post, Erykah took Flamin


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For most of his first term, President Obama successfully sold a line to the public that economists will tell you is, at least in part, intellectual snake oil. He managed to blame our historically slow economy almost entirely on President George W. Bush. Polls taken right after the 2012 election showed that one of Mitt Romney's biggest failures—and the GOP presidential candidate had staked almost everything on this point—was persuading U.S. voters otherwise.
But this week's dramatic economic news, timed with the start of Obama's second term, suggests that the political debate, if not the actual economy, is at an important milestone. On Wall Street, the Dow Jones industrial average reached new levels, shooting well above 14,000 and exceeding the closing records set in October 2007 just before the Big Crash. On Friday, a new jobs report finally gave Obama what he's wanted for four years: an unemployment rate that's below where he started as president, 7.7 percent. The Labor Department said nonfarm payrolls vastly outpaced expectations by increasing 236,000 in February, dropping the unemployment rate to the lowest level since December 2008, from 7.9 percent in January. Also this week, the Federal Reserve Board reported that Americans have recovered the staggering $16 trillion lost in wealth since the recession.
So, let's call it, folks: As of March 8, 2013, this has become Obama's economy.
It's been a good week, and his acolytes are crowing: 'Damn is that a good jobs report,' former chief economist Austan Goolsbee tweeted. 'Woot woot!' House Speaker John Boehner, struggling to put some bad spin on a bust-out week of economic news, reminded everyone, "Unemployment in America is still way above the levels the Obama White House projected when the trillion-dollar stimulus spending bill was enacted." Shades of the Romney campaign! Pretty lame.
But the harshest truths about the Obama economy are not ones Republicans would be eager to highlight. First, things are not really as good as the numbers suggest, and they are all but certain to get worse. If the $85 billion in cuts in the federal budget sequester go through as planned, gross domestic product will slow 0.5 percent, and about 750,000 jobs could be lost by the end of the year, the Congressional Budget Office says. The big numbers on Wall Street are also deceiving, says Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, who along with coauthor Carmen Reinhart tracked 800 years' worth of economic recoveries in a landmark 2009 book, This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. "One of the paradoxes we point out in our book is that very often the equity markets reach and surpass previous levels within a few years, despite the fact that the economy takes decades to recover," Rogoff said in an interview.
In addition, this is a very different American economy than the one we thought we had before the recession, and not in a good way. It's not just that 7.7 percent unemployment is still very high and something of a grim new "normal," along with still-high long-term unemployment. The problem is also that we've ended up with a far less equal economy. And there is little prospect of a consensus over tax reform or deficit reduction that will change that, no matter how many dinners Obama arranges with leading Republicans, like the one this week.
"The recovered wealth – most of it from higher stock prices – has been flowing mainly to richer Americans," the Associated Press reported. This corroborates earlier data from prominent economists such as Emmanuel Saez of the University of California (Berkeley), whose work has shown that the wealthiest 1 percent of the country actually made out better, in percentage terms, during Obama's "recovery" than they did from 2002-07 under Bush.
Even the high Dow numbers conceal a darker truth about inequality and a still-ailing economy beset by bottomed-out interest rates that make bonds unattractive. "Those low interest rates are the sign of an economy that is nowhere near to a full recovery from the financial crisis of 2008, while the high level of stock prices shouldn't be cause for celebration; it is, in large part, a reflection of the growing disconnect between productivity and wages," Paul Krugman writes in The New York Tiimes.