Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Fungible, Inc.

Cisco Technology, Inc.

Narendra Jayawant Gathoo

Pradeep S Sindhu

Srihari Raju Vegesna

Deepak Goel

Ayaskant Pani

Gopesh Goyal

Wael Noureddine

John David Huber

Robert William Bowdidge

Philip A Thomas

Jean-Marc Frailong

Saurin Patel

Suresh Vemula

Chetan Ambalal Shah

Rohit Sunkam Ramanujam

Phillip A Thomas

Amit Surendra Singh

Deepak Srinivas Mayya

Yixing Ruan

Ranga Rajagopalan

Amit Singh

Deepak S Mayya

A fabric control protocol (FCP) is a data transmission protocol that enables spraying of individual packets for a given packet flow across a data center from an ingress interface of the source data processing unit (DPU) across a plurality of parallel data paths of a logical tunnel in the network fabric to the egress interface of the destination DPU. The FCP has congestion control mechanisms used to determine a degree of congestion at the egress interface of the destination DPU and to modify a send window size at the source DPU based on the degree of congestion. Reliable FCP (rFCP) extensions provide reliability enhancements and improved failure resilience within the data center. The rFCP extensions provide an unsolicited mode for low latency operation with enhanced reliability mechanisms. The rFCP extensions provide failure resilience mechanisms to identify and avoid failed paths among multiple parallel data paths within the logical tunnel.

Reliable fabric control protocol extensions for data center networks with failure resilience

A fabric control protocol (FCP) and packet forwarding mechanisms are described that maximize utilization of bandwidth within massive, large-scale data centers having multi-stage data center switch fabric topologies, such as topologies that include a third switching layer formed by super spine switches. Automatic generation of data plane forwarding information referred to as FCP path information enumerates, for each data processing unit (DPU), the available FCP paths. The FCP path information may be based on unique combinations of peak points of the switch fabric for a given DPU with FCP colors assigned to network links that are used to multi-home the DPU to the switch fabric.

Fabric control protocol for large-scale multi-stage data center networks

Fabric control protocol with congestion control for data center networks

A fabric control protocol is described for use within a data center in which a switch fabric provides full mesh interconnectivity such that any of the servers may communicate packet data for a given packet flow to any other of the servers using any of a number of parallel data paths within the data center switch fabric. The fabric control protocol enables spraying of individual packets for a given packet flow across some or all of the multiple parallel data paths in the data center switch fabric and, optionally, reordering of the packets for delivery to the destination. The fabric control protocol may provide end-to-end bandwidth scaling and flow fairness within a single tunnel based on endpoint-controlled requests and grants for flows. In some examples, the fabric control protocol packet structure is carried over an underlying protocol, such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP).

Fabric control protocol for data center networks with packet spraying over multiple alternate data paths

Reliable fabric control protocol extensions for data center networks with unsolicited packet spraying over multiple alternate data paths

Techniques for detecting path failures and reducing packet loss as a result of such failures are described for use within a data center or other environment. For example, a source and/or destination access node may create and/or maintain information about health and/or connectivity for a plurality of ports or paths between the source and destination device and core switches. The source access node may spray packets over a number of paths between the source access node and the destination access node. The source access node may use the information about connectivity for the paths between the source or destination access nodes and the core switches to limit the paths over which packets are sprayed. The source access node may spray packets over paths between the source access node and the destination access node that are identified as healthy, while avoiding paths that have been identified as failed.

Resilient network communication using selective multipath packet flow spraying

Network access node virtual fabrics configured dynamically over an underlay network are described. A centralized controller, such as a software-defined networking (SDN) controller, of a packet switched network is configured to establish one or more virtual fabrics as overlay networks on top of the physical underlay network of the packet switched network. For example, the SDN controller may define multiple sets of two of more access nodes connected to the packet switched network, and the access nodes of a given one of the sets may use a new data transmission protocol, referred to generally herein as a fabric control protocol (FCP), to dynamically setup tunnels as a virtual fabric over the packet switched network. The FCP tunnels may include all or a subset of the parallel data paths through the packet switched network between the access nodes for a given virtual fabric.

Network access node virtual fabrics configured dynamically over an underlay network

An example system and method for multicast flow reordering in a network is provided and includes receiving a data packet at an egress of a node, the data packet associated with a descriptor including at least one parameter; determining the at least one parameter of the descriptor; and processing the data packet for reordering based on the determining of the at least on parameter of the descriptor.

Multicast flow reordering scheme

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Narendra Jayawant Gathoo