Shared Buffer Flow Segmentation for Accurate Congestion Detection
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing congestion management techniques in communication networks fail to effectively identify and control congested flows, leading to performance degradation and inefficiencies.
Innovation Solution
A network device with a Shared Buffer (SB) and a SB controller allocates flow-specific storage regions, detecting congestion by monitoring occupancy and load levels, and reports congested flows to destination or source nodes using notifications to manage and prevent congestion.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If flow-specific storage regions are allocated in the shared buffer to enable precise congestion detection, then congestion identification accuracy is improved, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The shared buffer is segmented into multiple flow-specific storage regions, where each region is dedicated to storing packets of a specific flow. This segmentation enables precise monitoring of occupancy levels for individual flows, allowing accurate congestion detection without requiring complex global buffer management. The buffer controller allocates and manages these segmented regions independently, simplifying the overall control logic while maintaining high detection precision.
2Speed
If occupancy threshold monitoring is implemented for each flow-specific storage region, then congestion response speed is improved, but processing overhead increases
Solution Approach 1:
The buffer controller implements continuous feedback monitoring of occupancy levels in each flow-specific storage region against pre-configured thresholds. When the occupancy level of a flow-specific region exceeds its threshold, the controller immediately generates a congestion notification. This feedback mechanism enables rapid congestion detection and response without requiring complex real-time calculations, as the threshold comparison is a simple and energy-efficient operation that can be performed continuously with minimal processing overhead.
Data Source
AI summary
A network device includes multiple ports, a Shared Buffer (SB) and a SB controller. The ports to connect to a communication network. The SB to temporarily store packets received from the communication network via the ports, the packets belonging to multiple flows. The SB controller to allocate one or more flow-specific storage regions in the SB, a given flow-specific storage region being allocated to store the packets that (i) belong to respective one or more of the flows and (ii) are to be transmitted via a respective egress queue. In response to detecting that an occupancy level in the given flow-specific storage region exceeds a specified occupancy threshold, the SB controller to report the flows in the given flow-specific storage region as congested.