阅读说明：本技术 一种流量分流方法、装置、电子设备及存储介质 (Flow shunting method and device, electronic equipment and storage medium ) 是由 侯文杰 陈国喜 田野 蔡琳 梁彧 傅强 王杰 杨满智 金红 陈晓光 于 2021-08-09 设计创作，主要内容包括：本发明实施例公开了一种流量分流方法、装置、电子设备及存储介质。该流量分流方法可以具体包括以下步骤：获取目标混合流量；对所述目标混合流量进行解码,生成目标解码结果；根据所述目标解码结果对所述目标混合流量进行分流处理。本发明实施例的技术方案能够在不采集IP地址的情况下,自动化、快速且准确地对混合流量进行分流。(The embodiment of the invention discloses a flow shunting method, a flow shunting device, electronic equipment and a storage medium. The flow splitting method may specifically include the following steps: acquiring a target mixed flow; decoding the target mixed flow to generate a target decoding result; and carrying out shunting processing on the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result. The technical scheme of the embodiment of the invention can automatically, quickly and accurately shunt the mixed flow under the condition of not collecting the IP address.)

1. A method for splitting traffic, comprising:

acquiring a target mixed flow;

decoding the target mixed flow to generate a target decoding result;

and carrying out shunting processing on the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the target mixed flow rate comprises a 4G flow rate and a 5G flow rate.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein decoding the target mixed traffic comprises:

sequentially identifying the decoding identification of the target network structure layer in the target mixed flow according to the network structure sequence;

shifting the protocol content after the decoding identification according to the shift length matched with the target network structure layer to generate the target decoding result;

the target network structure layer comprises an Ethernet layer, a VLAN layer, an IP layer, a UDP layer and a GTP layer.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the splitting the target mixed traffic according to the target decoding result comprises:

determining a target decoding identifier of a GTP layer in a target network structure layer;

acquiring a target decoding result of the GTP layer according to the target decoding identifier;

and carrying out shunting processing on the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result of the GTP layer.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein the performing the split processing on the target mixed traffic according to the target decoding result of the GTP layer includes:

acquiring a 5G flow characteristic identifier in a target decoding result of the GTP layer; wherein the 5G traffic feature identifier comprises a GTPU extension header;

and dividing the target mixed flow into 4G flow and 5G flow according to the 5G flow characteristic identification.

6. The method of any of claims 2-5, wherein obtaining a target mixed flow rate comprises:

determining mixed flow to be shunted according to the original mixed flow of an operator;

and copying the mixed flow to be shunted to obtain the target mixed flow.

7. The method according to claim 6, further comprising, after the splitting the target mixed traffic according to the target decoding result:

sending the 4G flow obtained by shunting to a 4G service processing system;

and sending the 5G flow obtained by shunting to a 5G service processing system.

8. A flow diversion apparatus, comprising:

the target mixed flow acquisition module is used for acquiring target mixed flow;

a target decoding result generation module, configured to decode the target mixed traffic to generate a target decoding result;

and the target mixed flow shunting module is used for shunting the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result.

9. An electronic device, characterized in that the electronic device comprises:

one or more processors;

storage means for storing one or more programs;

when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to implement the traffic offload method of any of claims 1-7.

10. A computer storage medium having a computer program stored thereon, the program, when executed by a processor, implementing a method of traffic splitting as claimed in any one of claims 1-7.

Technical Field

The embodiment of the invention relates to the technical field of mobile network communication, in particular to a traffic distribution method, a traffic distribution device, electronic equipment and a storage medium.

Background

At present, the application of the intelligent terminal is extremely popular, and a user can browse news and videos by using network traffic through the intelligent terminal. With the continuous development of network technology and information technology, the existing network technology has gradually developed to a direction of higher, faster and more intelligent.

In order to save the construction cost, the network elements in the network communication architecture of many operators are not independently constructed at present, but form the situation of co-located network elements. Therefore, when the flow data is collected, an operator can assemble a plurality of groups of flows together and transmit the flows to a DPI (Deep Packet analysis) manufacturer for processing, and the DPI manufacturer completes the shunting processing of mixed flows.

The existing method for processing the split flow of the mixed flow is to collect IP (Internet Protocol) addresses of all interfaces in the flow and then split the flow through the IP addresses, but the method depends on the reliability and stability of the collected IP addresses, that is, when the IP addresses cannot be completely and accurately collected, the split flow processing of the mixed flow cannot be realized, and a split flow strategy needs to be issued manually, when the mixed flow is split, the split flow strategy needs to be adjusted, so that the efficiency is low and the labor cost is high.

Disclosure of Invention

Embodiments of the present invention provide a traffic diversion method and apparatus, an electronic device, and a storage medium, which can automatically, quickly, and accurately divert mixed traffic without acquiring an IP address.

In a first aspect, an embodiment of the present invention provides a traffic splitting method, including:

acquiring a target mixed flow;

decoding the target mixed flow to generate a target decoding result;

and carrying out shunting processing on the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result.

In a second aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a flow diversion apparatus, including:

the target mixed flow acquisition module is used for acquiring target mixed flow;

a target decoding result generation module, configured to decode the target mixed traffic to generate a target decoding result;

and the target mixed flow shunting module is used for shunting the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result.

In a third aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides an electronic device, where the electronic device includes:

one or more processors;

storage means for storing one or more programs;

when the one or more programs are executed by the one or more processors, the one or more processors implement the traffic offloading method provided by any of the embodiments of the present invention.

In a fourth aspect, an embodiment of the present invention further provides a computer storage medium, on which a computer program is stored, where the computer program, when executed by a processor, implements the traffic offloading method provided in any embodiment of the present invention.

According to the embodiment of the invention, the target mixed traffic is obtained and is decoded to generate the target decoding result, so that the target mixed traffic is shunted according to the target decoding result, the problems of low reliability, stability and efficiency, high labor cost and the like of the conventional traffic shunting method are solved, and the mixed traffic can be shunted automatically, quickly and accurately under the condition of not acquiring the IP address.

Drawings

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a traffic splitting method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a network element device jointly configured by a 4G network element and a 5G network element in the prior art;

fig. 3 is a flowchart illustrating a specific example of a traffic offloading method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a diagram of a prior art example of characteristics of 4G user plane traffic;

FIG. 5 is a diagram of a prior art example of characteristics of 5G user plane traffic;

fig. 6 is a flowchart of another specific example of a traffic offloading method according to an embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 7 is a schematic view of a flow diversion apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of an electronic device according to a third embodiment of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The present invention will be described in further detail with reference to the accompanying drawings and examples. It is to be understood that the specific embodiments described herein are merely illustrative of the invention and are not limiting of the invention.

It should be further noted that, for the convenience of description, only some but not all of the relevant aspects of the present invention are shown in the drawings. Before discussing exemplary embodiments in more detail, it should be noted that some exemplary embodiments are described as processes or methods depicted as flowcharts. Although a flowchart may describe the operations (or steps) as a sequential process, many of the operations can be performed in parallel, concurrently or simultaneously. In addition, the order of the operations may be re-arranged. The process may be terminated when its operations are completed, but may have additional steps not included in the figure. The processes may correspond to methods, functions, procedures, subroutines, and the like.

Example one

Fig. 1 is a flowchart of a traffic offloading method according to an embodiment of the present invention, where the embodiment is applicable to a situation where a mixed traffic is automatically offloaded without acquiring an IP address, and the method may be executed by a traffic offloading device, and the device may be implemented in a software and/or hardware manner, and may generally be directly integrated in an electronic device that executes the method. As shown in fig. 1, the flow splitting method may specifically include the following steps:

and S110, acquiring the target mixed flow.

The target mixed flow may be a mixed flow to be split, for example, a mixed flow including a 3G flow and a 5G flow, a mixed flow including a 4G flow and a 5G flow, or a mixed flow including a 3G flow, a 4G flow and a 5G flow, and the like, which is not limited in this embodiment of the present invention. That is, the target mixed flow rate may include at least two different types of flow rates.

In the embodiment of the invention, if multiple groups of flows are converged together, a time period for flow splitting can be determined, and a target mixed flow in the multiple groups of flows converged together in the time period is obtained, so as to further process the target mixed flow, thereby realizing the splitting processing of the target mixed flow.

In an optional implementation manner of the embodiment of the present invention, the target mixed flow rate may optionally include a 4G flow rate and a 5G flow rate.

Fig. 2 is a schematic diagram of a network element device structure in which a 4G network element and a 5G network element are combined in the prior art, as shown in fig. 2, wherein a user plane serving gateway and a user plane packet data network gateway in a user plane of a 4G system are logically independent from a user plane function in a user plane of a 5G system, but are physically combined. Therefore, the traffic collected in the combined network element device is the mixed traffic of the 4G traffic and the 5G traffic.

Fig. 3 is a flowchart of a specific example of a traffic offloading method provided in an embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 3, in a specific application scenario in which a 4G network element and a 5G network element form a combined network element device, after an operator collects mixed traffic of the 4G traffic and the 5G traffic in a plurality of combined network element devices, the mixed traffic of the 4G traffic and the 5G traffic is subjected to traffic aggregation at an operator side, so as to obtain a target mixed traffic at the operator side.

In an optional implementation manner of the embodiment of the present invention, obtaining the target mixed flow may include: determining mixed flow to be shunted according to the original mixed flow of an operator; and copying the mixed flow to be shunted to obtain the target mixed flow.

The original mixed traffic may be mixed traffic collected by an operator in a co-located network element device. The mixed traffic to be shunted may be mixed traffic which is acquired by an operator in a co-located network element device and needs to be shunted.

Specifically, after the operator collects the mixed traffic in the combined network element device, the operator may further determine the mixed traffic to be shunted, which needs to be shunted, to copy the mixed traffic to be shunted, thereby obtaining the target mixed traffic, and performing the shunting processing on the mixed traffic which needs to be shunted.

And S120, decoding the target mixed flow to generate a target decoding result.

The target decoding result may be a result obtained by performing a decoding operation on the target mixed traffic.

In the embodiment of the present invention, after the target mixed traffic is obtained, a decoding operation may be further performed on the target mixed traffic to generate a target decoding result.

In an optional implementation manner of the embodiment of the present invention, decoding the target mixed traffic may include: sequentially identifying the decoding identification of the target network structure layer in the target mixed flow according to the network structure sequence; shifting the protocol content after the decoding identification according to the shift length matched with the target network structure layer to generate the target decoding result; the target Network structure layer includes an ethernet layer, a Virtual Local Area Network (VLAN) layer, an IP layer, a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) layer, and a GPRS Tunneling Protocol (GTP) layer.

The network structure order may be an order of structure layers in an architecture of an OSI (Open System Interconnection, international organization for standardization) seven-layer model. The target network structure layer may be a structure layer in the architecture of the OSI seven layer model, for example, the target network structure layer may include an ethernet layer, a VLAN layer, an IP layer, a UDP layer, and a GTP layer. The decoding identifier can be used to identify the structural layers in the architecture of the OSI seven-layer model. The offset length may be the length of a fabric layer in the architecture of the OSI seven layer model and may be used to store the protocol content of the fabric layer. The protocol content may be the protocol content of a structural layer in the architecture of the OSI seven layer model.

Specifically, the decoding identifier of each structural layer in the target network structure in the target mixed flow is sequentially identified according to the sequence of the structural layers in the system structure of the OSI seven-layer model, and after the decoding identifier of each structural layer is identified, the specific protocol content after the decoding identifier is further shifted according to the shift length matched with each structural layer in the target network structure, so as to realize the decoding operation of each structural layer in the target network structure, thereby generating the target decoding result after the decoding operation of the structural layers in the target network structural layer is completed, so as to obtain the corresponding protocol content in the target decoding result. It is understood that each of the target network fabric layers has a decoding identifier corresponding thereto, i.e., the decoding identifier of each fabric layer is different. Because the protocol content of each structural layer in the target network structural layer is different, the length required for storing the protocol content is also different, that is, the offset length matched by each structural layer in the target network structural layer is different.

And S130, carrying out shunting processing on the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result.

In the embodiment of the present invention, after the target mixed traffic is decoded and the target decoding result is generated, the target mixed traffic may be further split according to the target decoding result.

In an optional implementation manner of the embodiment of the present invention, the performing, according to the target decoding result, a flow splitting process on the target mixed traffic may include: determining a target decoding identifier of a GTP layer in a target network structure layer; acquiring a target decoding result of the GTP layer according to the target decoding identifier; and carrying out shunting processing on the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result of the GTP layer.

Wherein, the target decoding identifier may be a decoding identifier of a GTP layer in the target network structure layer.

Specifically, the splitting processing of the target mixed traffic according to the target decoding result may be that after the target decoding identifier of the GTP layer in the target network structure layer is determined, the target decoding result of the GTP layer is further obtained according to the target decoding identifier, so that the splitting processing of the target mixed traffic is performed according to the target decoding result of the GTP layer. It should be noted that, the 5G traffic characteristic flag for offloading the target hybrid traffic exists in the GTP layer of the target network structure layer, so after the decoding of the GTP layer is completed, the remaining other layers are not decoded any more.

In an optional implementation manner of the embodiment of the present invention, the splitting processing of the target mixed traffic according to the target decoding result of the GTP layer includes: acquiring a 5G flow characteristic identifier in a target decoding result of the GTP layer; wherein the 5G traffic feature identifier comprises a GTPU extension header; and dividing the target mixed flow into 4G flow and 5G flow according to the 5G flow characteristic identification.

Wherein the 5G traffic characteristic identifier may be used to identify the 5G traffic characteristic. It is understood that the 5G traffic signature is a different signature than the 4G traffic signature, and can uniquely identify the 5G traffic. Optionally, the 5G traffic feature identifier may include a GTPU (GPRS Tunneling Protocol User Plane) extension header. It should be noted that, in the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3 GPP) specification, it is explicitly stated that 4G user plane traffic and 5G user plane traffic are different in traffic characteristics. Illustratively, fig. 4 is a diagram of a characteristic example of 4G user plane traffic in the prior art, and fig. 5 is a diagram of a characteristic example of 5G user plane traffic in the prior art. As shown in fig. 4 and fig. 5, the difference between the 4G user plane traffic and the 5G user plane traffic in terms of traffic characteristics does exist whether to carry the GTPU extension header, that is, the 5G interface forcibly opens the GTPU extension header, so that the 4G traffic and the 5G traffic can be distinguished by determining whether to carry the GTPU extension header in the decoding result of the GTP layer, thereby implementing the split processing on the mixed traffic.

Specifically, after the target decoding result of the GTP layer is obtained, the 5G traffic feature identifier in the target decoding result of the GTP layer may be further obtained, so as to divide the target mixed traffic into 4G traffic and 5G traffic according to the 5G traffic feature identifier. It can be understood that the traffic having the 5G traffic characteristic identifier in the target decoding result may be divided into 5G traffic, and the traffic having no 5G traffic characteristic identifier in the target decoding result may be divided into 4G traffic.

In an optional implementation manner of the embodiment of the present invention, after performing a splitting process on the target mixed traffic according to the target decoding result, the method may further include: sending the 4G flow obtained by shunting to a 4G service processing system; and sending the 5G flow obtained by shunting to a 5G service processing system.

The 4G service processing system may be a system that performs service processing by using 4G traffic. The 5G service processing system may be a system that performs service processing using 5G traffic.

Fig. 6 is another specific flowchart of an embodiment of the traffic splitting method, and as shown in fig. 6, after dividing a target mixed traffic into a 4G traffic and a 5G traffic according to a 5G traffic feature identifier in a target decoding result of a GTP layer, the 4G traffic obtained by splitting may be further sent to a system that performs service processing using the 4G traffic, and the 5G traffic obtained by splitting may be sent to a system that performs service processing using the 5G traffic, so that different service systems may perform corresponding processing.

According to the technical scheme of the embodiment, the target mixed traffic is obtained and is decoded to generate the target decoding result, so that the target mixed traffic is shunted according to the target decoding result, the problems of low reliability, stability and efficiency, high labor cost and the like of the existing traffic shunting method are solved, and the mixed traffic can be shunted automatically, quickly and accurately under the condition of not acquiring the IP address.

Example two

Fig. 7 is a schematic view of a flow diversion apparatus according to a second embodiment of the present invention, and as shown in fig. 7, the apparatus includes: a target mixed traffic obtaining module 710, a target decoding result generating module 720 and a target mixed traffic splitting module 730; wherein the content of the first and second substances,

a target mixed flow obtaining module 710, configured to obtain a target mixed flow;

a target decoding result generating module 720, configured to decode the target mixed traffic to generate a target decoding result;

and a target mixed traffic splitting module 730, configured to split the target mixed traffic according to the target decoding result.

Alternatively, the target mixed flow rate may include a 4G flow rate and a 5G flow rate.

Optionally, the target decoding result generating module 720 may be further configured to:

sequentially identifying the decoding identification of the target network structure layer in the target mixed flow according to the network structure sequence; shifting the protocol content after the decoding identification according to the shift length matched with the target network structure layer to generate a target decoding result; the target network structure layer comprises an Ethernet layer, a VLAN layer, an IP layer, a UDP layer and a GTP layer.

Optionally, the target mixed flow splitting module 730 may be further configured to:

determining a target decoding identifier of a GTP layer in a target network structure layer; acquiring a target decoding result of a GTP layer according to the target decoding identifier; and carrying out shunting processing on the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result of the GTP layer.

Optionally, the target mixed flow splitting module 730 may be further specifically configured to:

acquiring a 5G flow characteristic identifier in a target decoding result of a GTP layer; the 5G flow characteristic identifier comprises a GTPU extension header; and dividing the target mixed flow into 4G flow and 5G flow according to the characteristic identification.

Optionally, the target mixed flow obtaining module 710 may be further configured to:

determining mixed flow to be shunted according to the original mixed flow of an operator; and copying the mixed flow to be shunted to obtain the target mixed flow.

Optionally, the target mixed flow splitting module 730 may be further specifically configured to:

sending the 4G flow obtained by shunting to a 4G service processing system; and sending the 5G flow obtained by shunting to a 5G service processing system.

According to the technical scheme of the embodiment, the target mixed traffic is obtained and is decoded to generate the target decoding result, so that the target mixed traffic is shunted according to the target decoding result, the problems of low reliability, stability and efficiency, high labor cost and the like of the existing traffic shunting method are solved, and the mixed traffic can be shunted automatically, quickly and accurately under the condition of not acquiring the IP address.

The flow shunting device can execute the flow shunting method provided by any embodiment of the invention, and has corresponding functional modules and beneficial effects of the execution method. For details of the technology that are not described in detail in this embodiment, reference may be made to the flow splitting method provided in any embodiment of the present invention.

Since the flow dividing device described above is a device capable of executing the flow dividing method in the embodiment of the present invention, based on the flow dividing method described in the embodiment of the present invention, a person skilled in the art can understand the specific implementation of the flow dividing device in the embodiment and various variations thereof, and therefore, how the flow dividing device implements the flow dividing method in the embodiment of the present invention is not described in detail herein. The device used by those skilled in the art to implement the method for splitting flow in the embodiment of the present invention is within the scope of the present application.

EXAMPLE III

Fig. 8 is a schematic structural diagram of an electronic device according to a third embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 8 illustrates a block diagram of an exemplary electronic device 12 suitable for use in implementing embodiments of the present invention. The electronic device 12 shown in fig. 8 is only an example, and should not bring any limitation to the functions and the scope of use of the embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in FIG. 8, electronic device 12 is embodied in the form of a general purpose computing device. The components of electronic device 12 may include, but are not limited to: one or more processors 16, a memory 28, and a bus 18 that connects the various system components (including the memory 28 and the processors 16).

Bus 18 represents one or more of any of several types of bus structures, including a memory bus or memory controller, a peripheral bus, an accelerated graphics port, and a processor or local bus using any of a variety of bus architectures. By way of example, such architectures include, but are not limited to, an Industry Standard Architecture (ISA) bus, a Micro Channel Architecture (MCA) bus, an enhanced ISA bus, a Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) local bus, and a Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) bus.

Electronic device 12 typically includes a variety of computer system readable media. Such media may be any available media that is accessible by electronic device 12 and includes both volatile and nonvolatile media, removable and non-removable media.

Memory 28 may include computer system readable media in the form of volatile Memory, such as Random Access Memory (RAM) 30 and/or cache Memory 32. The electronic device 12 may further include other removable/non-removable, volatile/nonvolatile computer system storage media. By way of example only, storage system 34 may be used to read from and write to non-removable, nonvolatile magnetic media (not shown in FIG. 8, and commonly referred to as a "hard drive"). Although not shown in FIG. 8, a magnetic disk drive for reading from and writing to a removable, nonvolatile magnetic disk (e.g., a "floppy disk") and an optical disk drive for reading from or writing to a removable, nonvolatile optical disk (e.g., a Compact disk-Read Only Memory (CD-ROM), a Digital Video disk (DVD-ROM), or other optical media) may be provided. In these cases, each drive may be connected to bus 18 by one or more data media interfaces. Memory 28 may include at least one program product having a set (e.g., at least one) of program modules that are configured to carry out the functions of embodiments of the invention.

A program/utility 40 having a set (at least one) of program modules 42 may be stored, for example, in memory 28, such program modules 42 including, but not limited to, an operating system, one or more application programs, other program modules, and program data, each of which examples or some combination thereof may comprise an implementation of a network environment. Program modules 42 generally carry out the functions and/or methodologies of the described embodiments of the invention.

Electronic device 12 may also communicate with one or more external devices 14 (e.g., keyboard, pointing device, display 24, etc.), with one or more devices that enable a user to interact with electronic device 12, and/or with any devices (e.g., network card, modem, etc.) that enable electronic device 12 to communicate with one or more other computing devices. Such communication may be through an Input/Output (I/O) interface 22. Also, the electronic device 12 may communicate with one or more networks (e.g., a Local Area Network (LAN), Wide Area Network (WAN), and/or a public Network such as the internet) via the Network adapter 20. As shown, the network adapter 20 communicates with other modules of the electronic device 12 via the bus 18. It should be appreciated that although not shown in FIG. 8, other hardware and/or software modules may be used in conjunction with electronic device 12, including but not limited to: microcode, device drivers, Redundant processing units, external disk drive Arrays, (Redundant Arrays of Independent Disks, RAID) systems, tape drives, and data backup storage systems, to name a few.

The processor 16 executes various functional applications and data processing by running the program stored in the memory 28, so as to implement the traffic offload method provided by the embodiment of the present invention: acquiring a target mixed flow; decoding the target mixed flow to generate a target decoding result; and carrying out shunting processing on the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result.

Example four

The fourth embodiment of the present invention further provides a computer storage medium storing a computer program, where the computer program is used to execute the traffic offloading method according to any of the above embodiments of the present invention when executed by a computer processor: acquiring a target mixed flow; decoding the target mixed flow to generate a target decoding result; and carrying out shunting processing on the target mixed flow according to the target decoding result.

Computer storage media for embodiments of the invention may employ any combination of one or more computer-readable media. The computer readable medium may be a computer readable signal medium or a computer readable storage medium. A computer readable storage medium may be, for example, but not limited to, an electronic, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic, infrared, or semiconductor system, apparatus, or device, or any combination of the foregoing. More specific examples (a non-exhaustive list) of the computer readable storage medium would include the following: an electrical connection having one or more wires, a portable computer diskette, a hard disk, a Random Access Memory (RAM), a Read-Only Memory (ROM), an Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory (EPROM) or flash Memory), an optical fiber, a portable compact disc Read-Only Memory (CD-ROM), an optical storage device, a magnetic storage device, or any suitable combination of the foregoing. In the context of this document, a computer readable storage medium may be any tangible medium that can contain, or store a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

A computer readable signal medium may include a propagated data signal with computer readable program code embodied therein, for example, in baseband or as part of a carrier wave. Such a propagated data signal may take many forms, including, but not limited to, electro-magnetic, optical, or any suitable combination thereof. A computer readable signal medium may also be any computer readable medium that is not a computer readable storage medium and that can communicate, propagate, or transport a program for use by or in connection with an instruction execution system, apparatus, or device.

Program code embodied on a computer readable medium may be transmitted using any appropriate medium, including but not limited to wireless, wireline, optical fiber cable, Radio Frequency (RF), etc., or any suitable combination of the foregoing.

Computer program code for carrying out operations for aspects of the present invention may be written in any combination of one or more programming languages, including an object oriented programming language such as Java, Smalltalk, C + + or the like and conventional procedural programming languages, such as the "C" programming language or similar programming languages. The program code may execute entirely on the user's computer, partly on the user's computer, as a stand-alone software package, partly on the user's computer and partly on a remote computer or entirely on the remote computer or server. In the case of a remote computer, the remote computer may be connected to the user's computer through any type of network, including a Local Area Network (LAN) or a Wide Area Network (WAN), or the connection may be made to an external computer (for example, through the Internet using an Internet service provider).

It is to be noted that the foregoing is only illustrative of the preferred embodiments of the present invention and the technical principles employed. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the present invention is not limited to the particular embodiments described herein, but is capable of various obvious changes, rearrangements and substitutions as will now become apparent to those skilled in the art without departing from the scope of the invention. Therefore, although the present invention has been described in greater detail by the above embodiments, the present invention is not limited to the above embodiments, and may include other equivalent embodiments without departing from the spirit of the present invention, and the scope of the present invention is determined by the scope of the appended claims.