Innovium, Inc.

Broadcom Corporation

Marvell Asia Pte., Ltd.

Avago Technologies General IP (singapore) Pte. Ltd.

Avago Technologies General IP Pte, Ltd.

Rupa Budhia

Puneet Agarwal

William Brad Matthews

Meg Pei Lin

Mani Kumaran

Mohan V Kalkunte

Biju Ravindranatha Babu

Vasant Shankargouda Patil

Venkateshwar Buduma

Gururaj Ananthateerta

Biju Babu

Mohan Kalkunte

A packet to be forwarded over a computer network to a destination is received. A group of multiple network paths is available to forward to the packet to the destination. One or more path selection factors are determined to be used to identify a specific network load balancing algorithm to select a specific network path from the group of multiple network paths. The one or more path selection factors include at least one path selection factor determined based at least in part on a dynamic state of the computer network or a network node in the computer network. In response to selecting, by the specific network load balancing algorithm, the specific network path from among the group of multiple network paths, the packet is forwarded over the specific network path.

Optimized path selection for multi-path groups

Automatic load-balancing techniques in a network device are used to select, from a multipath group, a path to assign to a flow based on observed state attributes such as path state(s), device state(s), port state(s), or queue state(s) of the paths. A mapping of the path previously assigned to a flow or group of flows (e.g., on account of having then been optimal in view of the observed state attributes) is maintained, for example, in a table. So long as the flow(s) are active and the path is still valid, the mapped path is selected for subsequent data units belonging to the flow(s), which may, among other effects, avoid or reduce packet re-ordering. However, if the flow(s) go idle, or if the mapped path fails, a new optimal path may be assigned to the flow(s) from the multipath group.

Auto load balancing

Packet-switching operations in a network device are managed based on the detection of excessive-rate traffic flows. A network device receives a data unit, determines the traffic flow to which the data unit belongs, and updates flow tracking information for that flow. The network device utilizes the tracking information to determine when a rate at which the network device is receiving data belonging to the flow exceeds an excessive-rate threshold and is thus an excessive-rate flow. The network device may enable one or more excessive-rate policies on an excessive-rate traffic flow. Such a policy may include any number of features that affect how the device handles data units belonging to the flow, such as excessive-rate notification, differentiated discard, differentiated congestion notification, and reprioritization. Memory and other resource optimizations for such flow tracking and management are also described.

Automatic flow management

A switch or other network device may be configured as an ingress edge telemetry node in a telemetry domain. The ingress edge telemetry node may clone certain data units it processes, for example in response to certain telemetry triggers being met. The ingress edge telemetry node may further inject telemetry and/or other data into the cloned data unit. The cloned data unit continues along the same path as the original data unit until it reaches an egress edge telemetry node in the telemetry domain. The second node extracts the telemetry data from the cloned data unit and sends telemetry information based thereon to a telemetry collector, while the original data unit continues to its final destination. Nodes along the path between the first node and the second node may be configured as transit telemetry nodes that insert or otherwise update the telemetry data.

Path telemetry data collection

Prefix entries are efficiently stored at a networking device for performance of a longest prefix match against the stored entries. A prefix entry generally refers to a data entry which maps a particular prefix to one or more actions to be performed by a networking device with respect to network packets or other data structures associated with a network packet that matches the particular prefix. In the context of a router networking device handling a data packet, the one or more actions may include, for example, forwarding a received network packet to a particular 'next hop' networking device in order to progress the network packet towards its final destination, applying firewall rule(s), manipulating the packet, and so forth. To reduce a total amount of space occupied by a prefix tree in storage, each of the nodes of a prefix tree may be configured to store only an incremental portion of a prefix relative to its parent node.

Network device storage of incremental prefix trees

Approaches, techniques, and mechanisms are disclosed for assigning paths to network packets. The path assignment techniques utilize path state information and/or other criteria to determine whether to route a packet along a primary candidate path selected for the packet, or one or more alternative candidate paths selected for the packet. According to an embodiment, network traffic is at least partially balanced by redistributing only a portion of the traffic that would have been assigned to a given primary path. Move-eligibility criteria are applied to traffic to determine whether a given packet is eligible for reassignment from a primary path to an alternative path. The move-eligibility criteria determine which portion of the network traffic to move and which portion to allow to proceed as normal. In an embodiment, the criteria and functions used to determine whether a packet is redistributable are adjusted over time based on path state information.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Rupa Budhia