Intel Corporation

Qlogic Corporation

Manoj Wadekar

Edward C McGlaughlin

Gary L McAlpine

Gaurav Agarwal

Tanmay Gupta

Hitesh Rastogi

Eric J DeHaemer

Ilango S Ganga

Bruce Anthony Klemin

Renae M Weber

Abhijit Seal

Michael Ho

Gary Mcalpine

Methods and systems for network communication are provided. A method includes maintaining a first segment of a routing data structure at a first switching module of a network adapter for routing a frame between virtual machines executed by a computing device operationally coupled to the network adapter; maintaining a second segment of the routing data structure at a second switching module for routing a frame received at a port of the network adapter to an external destination; receiving a frame from the computing device and using the first segment by the first switching module to route the frame to a destination virtual machine; and receiving a frame at a port of the network adapter and using the second segment of the routing structure by the second switching module to the route the frame to its destination without providing the frame to the computing device.

Integrated fabric adapter and associated methods thereof

The present embodiments support both tunneling and offload functionality for tunneled packet having a tunnel header, the tunnel header encapsulating a packet, the packet having a packet header and a payload. When a tunneled packet is received at a network device, an offset value for the packet header is determined by comparing the tunnel header to a plurality of entries stored at a data structure maintained by the network device. The offset value is used for pre-processing the packet, and an offload module of the network device performs an offload function.

Methods and systems for processing network information

Method and system for a first network device and a second network device is provided. The first network device and the second network device communicate with each other via a first network link and a second network link. A traffic type between the first network device and the second network device is excluded from link aggregation. When a packet is received from the first network device; and if the packet is excluded from link aggregation, then the first network link or the second link is selected to transmit the packet based on a physical port identifier identifying a port of the first network device.

Method and system for link aggregation

Method and system for a first network device and a second network device is provided. The first network device and the second network device communicate with each other via a plurality of network links. A network packet field for applying a hashing technique for selecting one of the network links to transmit the network packet is negotiated between the first network device and the second network device. The hashing technique is identified for selecting the selected network link. The first network device and the second network device, prior to applying the hashing technique exchange hashing parameters.

In a network having a computing system interfacing with a storage system via a switch, an average transmit wait count value is compared with a first threshold value. The average transmit wait count value is updated when a switch port has a frame available for transmission but is unable to transmit the frame if a port of the storage system is unable to receive the frame or if another switch port is unable to receive the frame. A congestion message is generated for notifying a management module of congestion at the switch port when the average transmit wait count value reaches the first threshold value. Depending upon the characteristics of the congestion, a notification is sent to the computing system to either only reduce a rate of write operations to reduce congestion, or to reduce both the rate of write operations and a rate of read operations.

Method and system for congestion management in networks

In one embodiment, the present invention includes a method for reading configuration information from a multi-function device (MFD), building a dependency tree of a functional dependency of functions performed by the MFD based on the configuration information, which indicates that the MFD is capable of performing at least one function dependent upon another function, and loading software associated with the functions in order based at least in part on the indicated functional dependency. Other embodiments are described and claimed.

Enabling functional dependency in a multi-function device

Packet flow control techniques are disclosed. In one example case, a flow control method is provided that includes transmitting a plurality of packets with an inter-packet gap disposed between neighboring packets, and increasing the length of the inter-packet gap to decrease packet rate, wherein the increased length is selected based on severity of a congestion condition. In another example case, a flow control system is provided that includes circuitry for transmitting and/or receiving a plurality of packets with an inter-packet gap disposed between neighboring packets, and circuitry for increasing the length of the inter-packet gap to decrease packet rate, wherein the increased length is selected based on severity of a congestion condition. The techniques can be carried out at one node of a communication system (such as in a backplane switch) or multiple nodes (such as between a backplane switch and a circuit board operatively coupled to the backplane).

Packet flow control

A node uses a two dimensional array of transmit queues to store frames to be transmitted from the node to another node. The size of the array is governed by the number of directions to which the other node may forward frames once received from the node, and the number of priorities that may be associated with the frames. The transmit queues are distinguished from each other based on direction and priority. A transmitter transmits frames dequeued from the transmit queues to the other node. Control logic that controls the transmit queues receives an indication from the other node whether the other node is experiencing traffic congestion in any of the directions and the priority of frames at or below which the control logic is to control the dequeuing of frames from transmit queues corresponding to the directions in which the other node is experiencing traffic congestion.

Directional and priority based flow control mechanism between nodes

A source node receives related frames of data to be transmitted from the source node to a destination node and places the frames in a queue. The queue is associated with a communication path over which the related frames are to be transmitted to the destination node. An interface that couples the source node to the communication path receives an indication directed to the source node of traffic congestion in the communication path. In response, the source node controls the rate at which the related frames of data are transferred from the queue to a transmit buffer accessible to the interface, in order to relieve the traffic congestion in the communication path.

Congestion control in a network

Apparatus, systems, methods, and articles described generally herein may receive a first packet marked with a congestion indicator (CI). Upon receipt of the CI, a load-balancing operation may be performed among a plurality of physical links upstream from a point of congestion to alleviate the congestion. Other embodiments may be described and claimed.

Network load balancing

A flow control method according to one embodiment may include transmitting a first plurality of packets from a transmitting node to a receiving node at an initial packet rate, and transmitting a second plurality packets from the transmitting node to the receiving node at a congested packet rate less than the initial packet rate in response to a signal from the receiving node representative of a congestion condition at the receiving node. Of course, many alternatives, variations, and modifications are possible without departing from this embodiment.

Numerous embodiments of a method and apparatus for address management in a network device are disclosed.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Manoj Wadekar