Method and system for detecting congestion and over subscription in a fibre channel network
First Claim
Patent Images
1. A system for detecting congestion at a receive segment of a port of a fibre channel switch element, comprising:
- a counter at the receive segment that is incremented when an indicator is set indicating that a receive buffer at the receive segment is full;
wherein the receive buffer is used for temporarily storing fibre channel frames at the receive segment;
a threshold register for storing a threshold value for detecting congestion at the receive segment;
wherein an output value from the counter is compared with the threshold value and if the output value is greater than the threshold value, then congestion is detected at the receive segment; and
a receive buffer log that stores a destination identifier value and a source identifier value for frames received at the receive segment; and
the rate at which the receive buffer log changes, indicates how quickly frames are moving through the receive segment to a transmit segment of the port.
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Abstract
A method and system for detecting congestion and over-subscription in a fiber channel switch element is provided. A counter is updated if a frame cannot be transmitted due to lack of credit; then the counter value is compared to a threshold value; and an event is triggered if the counter value varies from the threshold value. Also, provided is a first register that maintains information regarding a rate at which a source port can transfer data; a counter that counts entries corresponding to a number of frames to be transmitted at a given time; and a second register that determines an over-subscription rate.
354 Citations
10 Claims
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1. A system for detecting congestion at a receive segment of a port of a fibre channel switch element, comprising:
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a counter at the receive segment that is incremented when an indicator is set indicating that a receive buffer at the receive segment is full;
wherein the receive buffer is used for temporarily storing fibre channel frames at the receive segment;a threshold register for storing a threshold value for detecting congestion at the receive segment;
wherein an output value from the counter is compared with the threshold value and if the output value is greater than the threshold value, then congestion is detected at the receive segment; anda receive buffer log that stores a destination identifier value and a source identifier value for frames received at the receive segment; and
the rate at which the receive buffer log changes, indicates how quickly frames are moving through the receive segment to a transmit segment of the port. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3)
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4. A system for determining over-subscription in a transmit segment of a port of a fibre channel switch element, comprising:
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an over-subscription module that receives information regarding a rate at which a plurality of source ports transmit frames and a number of frames that are waiting to be transmitted by the plurality of source ports, at any given time; wherein the over-subscription rate is determined by the following;
((R0*F0)+(R1*F1)+ . . . (R(n−
1)*F(n−
1)))/T;
where “
n”
is a number of the plurality of source ports, “
R”
is a rate at which the plurality of source ports operate, “
T”
is a number of frames that are waiting to be transmitted at any given time, and “
T”
is a transmit rate for the transmit segment;wherein the transmit segment is over-subscribed if frames arrive faster than a rate at which the transmit segment transmit the frames. - View Dependent Claims (5, 6)
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7. A method for determining over-subscription in a transmit segment of a port for a fibre channel switch element, comprising:
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determining an over-subscription value based on following;
((R0*F0)+(R1*F1)+ . . . (R(n−
1)*F(n−
1)))/T;
where “
n”
is a number of a plurality of source ports sending frames to the port, “
R”
is a rate at which the plurality of source ports operate, “
F”
is a number of frames that are waiting to be transmitted at any given time, and “
T”
is a transmit rate for the transmit segment;wherein the transmit segment is over-subscribed if frames arrive faster than a rate at which the transmit segment transmits the frames; and notifying a processor for the fibre channel switch element of the over-subscription, if the determined over-subscription value is different from a stored threshold value. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 10)
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Specification