BACKGROUND

Technical Field

This disclosure relates generally to computer networks, including to enhancing how a network communicates traffic with different communication demands.

Description of the Related Art

A computer network may have limited resources and need to communicate network traffic with different demands relating to bandwidth, latency, jitter, and/or data loss. For example, an audio stream to a user may have low latency demands, but permit small amounts of data loss—e.g., a call between two people may be difficult if there is a significant delay, but the call may be still understandable in spite of some packet loss. On the other hand, communication of a large file across a network may have high bandwidth and integrity demands, but latency may be less of a concern. Modern computer networks may attempt to schedule traffic in a manner that considers these demands in order to ensure that particular streams of traffic are afforded certain levels of quality of service (QoS).

SUMMARY

The present disclosure describes embodiments in which a network planner is used to enhance how network traffic is communicated among nodes in a network. In various embodiments, the network planner may analyze information about a network and information about streams of network traffic being communicated over the network (e.g., demands regarding latency, bandwidth, frequency of communication, redundancy, etc.). The network planner may then generate a network schedule that describes how traffic should be communicated in order to accommodate for the various traffic demands. The network schedule may be distributed to various network resources, such as switches and end nodes, so that network traffic is communicated in accordance with the network schedule.

