Efficient flow management utilizing control packets

Abstract

Techniques are disclosed for utilizing control packets to manage flows by a smart network interface card (smartNIC). In one example, an accelerator of the smartNIC determines that a cache entry of a cache that is managed by the accelerator is a candidate for removal. The cache entry stores flow state of a particular flow. The accelerator generates a control packet that includes flow information of the particular flow that is formatted utilizing a particular header format, the flow information operable for generating a hash that indexes to the cache entry. The accelerator includes an instruction within the control packet that requests a programming data plane of the smartNIC to provide instructions for removing the cache entry from the cache. Upon receiving the control packet, the programming data plane generates and transmits a second instruction to the accelerator for removing the cache entry from the cache.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is related to U.S. Non-Provisional Application Ser. No. ______, entitled, “Port Addressing Via Packet Header Modification (088325-1213711-284200US),” filed currently herewith. The full disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety for all purposes.BACKGROUND[0002]Cloud services computing systems are often tasked with, among other computing operations, processing packets. For example, packet processing operations may include routing and / or forwarding packets, implementing security list functionality to only forward certain packets, determining rules for subsequent processing of packets for a particular flow, etc. As the amount of network traffic has grown substantially in recent years, modern cloud computing systems often need to process a large number of packets per second. To help process packets efficiently, techniques and / or devices have been utilized to offload some of the processing burden f...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The patent describes how a device called a network virtualization device (NVD) can manage the flow of data between two different planes of the device. The invention helps the NVD to efficiently handle this coordination.

Problems solved by technology

As the amount of network traffic has grown substantially in recent years, modern cloud computing systems often need to process a large number of packets per second.

For example, some of these more complex tasks may include programming the data plane with new instructions, determining instructions for handling new flows, analyzing packets to generate flow statistics, etc.

While separating the data plane and the programming data plane of a smartNIC has enabled packet processing efficiency gains, challenges remain with respect to efficiently coordinating tasks between the different components (e.g., planes) of a smartNIC.

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