CPC H04L 45/28 (2013.01) [G06F 9/505 (2013.01); G06F 9/546 (2013.01); G06F 12/0862 (2013.01); G06F 12/1036 (2013.01); G06F 12/1063 (2013.01); G06F 13/14 (2013.01); G06F 13/16 (2013.01); G06F 13/1642 (2013.01); G06F 13/1673 (2013.01); G06F 13/1689 (2013.01); G06F 13/28 (2013.01); G06F 13/385 (2013.01); G06F 13/4022 (2013.01); G06F 13/4068 (2013.01); G06F 13/4221 (2013.01); G06F 15/17331 (2013.01); H04L 1/0083 (2013.01); H04L 43/0876 (2013.01); H04L 43/10 (2013.01); H04L 45/02 (2013.01); H04L 45/021 (2013.01); H04L 45/028 (2013.01); H04L 45/122 (2013.01); H04L 45/123 (2013.01); H04L 45/125 (2013.01); H04L 45/16 (2013.01); H04L 45/20 (2013.01); H04L 45/22 (2013.01); H04L 45/24 (2013.01); H04L 45/38 (2013.01); H04L 45/42 (2013.01); H04L 45/46 (2013.01); H04L 45/566 (2013.01); H04L 45/70 (2013.01); H04L 45/745 (2013.01); H04L 45/7453 (2013.01); H04L 47/11 (2013.01); H04L 47/12 (2013.01); H04L 47/122 (2013.01); H04L 47/18 (2013.01); H04L 47/20 (2013.01); H04L 47/22 (2013.01); H04L 47/24 (2013.01); H04L 47/2441 (2013.01); H04L 47/2466 (2013.01); H04L 47/2483 (2013.01); H04L 47/30 (2013.01); H04L 47/32 (2013.01); H04L 47/323 (2013.01); H04L 47/34 (2013.01); H04L 47/39 (2013.01); H04L 47/52 (2013.01); H04L 47/621 (2013.01); H04L 47/6235 (2013.01); H04L 47/626 (2013.01); H04L 47/6275 (2013.01); H04L 47/629 (2013.01); H04L 47/76 (2013.01); H04L 47/762 (2013.01); H04L 47/781 (2013.01); H04L 47/80 (2013.01); H04L 49/101 (2013.01); H04L 49/15 (2013.01); H04L 49/30 (2013.01); H04L 49/3009 (2013.01); H04L 49/3018 (2013.01); H04L 49/3027 (2013.01); H04L 49/90 (2013.01); H04L 49/9005 (2013.01); H04L 49/9021 (2013.01); H04L 49/9036 (2013.01); H04L 49/9047 (2013.01); H04L 67/1097 (2013.01); H04L 69/22 (2013.01); H04L 69/40 (2013.01); G06F 2212/50 (2013.01); G06F 2213/0026 (2013.01); G06F 2213/3808 (2013.01); H04L 69/28 (2013.01)] | 21 Claims |
1. A method, comprising:
monitoring an input queue for a flow of packets received by a physical ingress port of a switch, wherein packets in the flow of packets comprise a source identifier indicating the source of the flow of packets and exclude a flow identifier;
upon receiving the flow of packets, assigning, by the switch, the flow identifier to the packets in the flow, the flow identifier being unique to the physical ingress port, and the flow identifier being local to the physical ingress port of the switch;
determining that an amount of data of the flow stored in the input queue exceeds a threshold;
setting an indicator which indicates that flow control is in effect with respect to an upstream switch; and
generating a flow control message for the upstream switch, wherein the flow control message comprises the flow identifier and a headroom value that indicates an amount of data of the flow the upstream switch is allowed to forward toward an input port of a downstream switch, thereby controlling a rate at which acknowledgement (ACK) packets of the flow are forwarded by the upstream switch to the downstream switch, the ACK packets having been generated upon receipt of packets of the flow at the flow's destination,
when a packet is delivered to a destination egress switch, the destination egress switch enabled to generate and send back an acknowledgement (ACK) in an upstream direction along a same data path to the switch being an ingress edge device.
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