Method and system for improved load balancing of received network traffic

• US 9,813,342 B2
• Filed: 11/14/2014
• Issued: 11/07/2017
• Est. Priority Date: 11/14/2014
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Marvell Asia Pte Limited (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Original Assignee: Cavium, LLC (Marvell Technology Group Limited)
• Inventors: Gyllenhammer, Carl Richard, Snyder, II, Wilson Parkhurst, Romanov, Philip
• Primary Examiner(s): LAM, YEE F
• Application Number:
  US14/542,528
• Publication Number:
  US 20160142320A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,089 Days
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 47/125 by balancing the load, e.g. traffic engineering
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 49/70 Virtual switches
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 69/22 Parsing or analysis of headers

Abstract

A method and a system embodying the method for load balancing of a received a packet based network traffic, comprising: receiving a packet at a software defined network switch; determining information pertaining to uniqueness of a packet flow for the received packet; providing the determined information and the received packet to a network interface controller; and processing the received packet at the network interface controller in accordance with the provided determined information, are disclosed.

Claims

1. A method for load balancing of a received packet based network traffic, comprising:

receiving a packet at a network interface;

determining a physical port identifier in accordance with a physical port receiving the packet;

providing the packet and the determined physical port identifier to a software defined network switch;

determining information pertaining to uniqueness of a packet flow for the received packet by parsing at least one layer of the packet in accordance with rules of the software defined network switch and determining a tag from the at least one parsed layer in accordance with the rules;

determining that the received packet comprises a non-standard packet structure upon the physical port identifier identifying one of a first set of physical ports;

providing the tag together with the received packet to a network interface controller when the received packet comprises the non-standard packet structure;

providing at least the received packet to the network interface controller when the received packet comprises a standard packet structure upon the physical port identifier identifying one of a second set of physical ports; and

processing the received packet at the network interface controller in accordance with at least one of the provided tag and the packet structure;

wherein the received packet comprising the standard packet structure is processed in accordance with a receive side scaling.

2. The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the processing the received packet at the network interface controller in accordance with at least one of the provided tag and the packet structure comprises:

determining a value of a first field in the tag; and

processing the received packet in accordance with the determined value.

3. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the processing the received packet in accordance with the determined value comprises:

processing the received packet in accordance with a receive side scaling as indicated by the first field'"'"'s determined value comprising a first value.

4. The method as claimed in claim 2, wherein the processing the received packet in accordance with the determined value comprises:

modifying a receive side scaling as indicated by the first field comprising other than a first value.

5. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the modifying a receive side scaling as indicated by the first field comprising other than a first value comprises:

determining a value of a second field in the tag as indicated by the first field comprising a second value; and

mapping the packet to a received queue indicated by the determined value of the second field.

6. The method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the modifying a receive side scaling as indicated by the first field comprising other than a first value comprises:

determining a value of a second field in the provided tag as indicated by the first field comprising a third value; and

using the determined value of the second field of the tag as a pointer into a packet format lookup table of the receive side scaling.

7. The method as claimed in claim 6, further comprising:

determining a value of a third field in the tag as indicated by the first field comprising the third value; and

combining an indirection index generated by the receive side scaling with the determined value of the third field.

8. An apparatus for load balancing of a received packet based network traffic, comprising:

a network interface configured to;

receive a packet;

determine a physical port identifier in accordance with a physical port receiving the packet; and

provide the packet and the determined physical port identifier to a software defined network switch communicatively coupled to the network interface; and

a network interface controller communicatively coupled to the software defined network switch;

wherein the software defined network switch is configured to;

receive the packet and the determined physical port identifier;

determine information pertaining to uniqueness of a packet flow for the received packet by parsing at least one layer of the packet in accordance with rules of the software defined network switch and determining a tag from the at least one parsed layer in accordance with the rules;

determine that the received packet comprises a non-standard packet structure upon the physical port identifier identifying one of a first set of physical ports;

provide the tag together with the received packet to the network interface controller when the received packet comprises the non-standard packet structure; and

provide at least the received packet to the network interface controller when the received packet comprises a standard packet structure upon the physical port identifier identifying one of a second set of physical ports; and

the network interface controller is configured to process the received packet in accordance with at least one of the provided tag and the packet structure;

wherein the received packet comprising the standard packet structure is processed in accordance with a receive side scaling.

9. The apparatus as claimed in claim 8, wherein the network interface controller processes the received packet in accordance with at least one of the provided tag and the packet structure by being configured to:

determine a value of a first field in the provided tag; and

process the received packet in accordance with the determined value.

10. The apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein the network interface controller processes the received packet in accordance with the determined value by being configured to:

process the received packet in accordance with a receive side scaling as indicated by the first field'"'"'s determined value comprising a first value.

11. The apparatus as claimed in claim 9, wherein the network interface controller processes the received packet in accordance with the determined value by being configured to:

modify the receive side scaling as indicated by the first field comprising other than the first value.

12. The apparatus as claimed in claim 11, wherein the network interface controller modifies the receive side scaling as indicated by the first field comprising other than the first value by being configured to:

determine a value of a second field in the tag as indicated by the first field comprising a second value; and

map the packet to a received queue indicated by the determined value of the second field.

13. The apparatus as claimed in claim 11, wherein the network interface controller modifies the receive side scaling as indicated by the first field comprising other than the first value by being configured to:

determine a value of a second field in the provided tag as indicated by the first field comprising a third value; and

use the determined value of the second field of the tag as a pointer into a packet format lookup table of the receive side scaling.

14. The apparatus as claimed in claim 13, wherein the network interface controller is further configured to:

determine a value of a third field in the tag as indicated by the first field comprising the third value; and

combine an indirection index generated by the receive side scaling with the determined value of the third field.