US 11,811,669 B2
Inspecting operations of a machine to detect elephant flows
W. Andrew Lambeth, San Francisco, CA (US); Amit Vasant Patil, Pune (IN); Prasad Sharad Dabak, Pune (IN); Laxmikant Vithal Gunda, San Jose, CA (US); Vasantha Kumar Dhanasekar, Pune (IN); and Justin Pettit, Los Altos Hills, CA (US)
Assigned to NICIRA, INC., Palo Alto, CA (US)
Filed by Nicira, Inc., Palo Alto, CA (US)
Filed on Dec. 25, 2022, as Appl. No. 18/088,601.
Application 18/088,601 is a continuation of application No. 15/972,232, filed on May 7, 2018, granted, now 11,539,630.
Application 15/972,232 is a continuation of application No. 14/502,102, filed on Sep. 30, 2014, granted, now 9,967,199, issued on May 8, 2018.
Claims priority of provisional application 62/010,944, filed on Jun. 11, 2014.
Claims priority of provisional application 61/973,255, filed on Mar. 31, 2014.
Claims priority of provisional application 61/913,899, filed on Dec. 9, 2013.
Prior Publication US 2023/0128660 A1, Apr. 27, 2023
This patent is subject to a terminal disclaimer.
Int. Cl. H04L 47/2441 (2022.01); H04L 43/026 (2022.01)
CPC H04L 47/2441 (2013.01) [H04L 43/026 (2013.01)] 19 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. A method for detecting an elephant flow by inspecting operations of a machine that operates on a physical host computer, the method comprising:
at a detector operating on the physical host computer, receiving information from an agent executing on the machine regarding a file transfer initiated by an application executing on the machine, the information comprising a size of the file to be transferred and a data flow associated with the file transfer;
when the file size exceeds a threshold, specifying the data flow associated with the file transfer as an elephant flow; and
reporting that the data flow is an elephant flow, wherein a managed forwarding element processes the data associated with the detected elephant flow differently from other flows not detected as elephant flows.