Backpressure mechanism for switching fabric
US7426185B1 · kind B1 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Feb 5, 2003 |
| Grant date | Sep 16, 2008 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Nov 27, 2025 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L49/3072
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Roughly described, a packet switching fabric contains a separate queue scheduler for each combination of an input module and a fabric output port. The schedulers may also be specific to a single class of service. Each queue scheduler schedules its packets without regard to state of other input queues and without regard to packets destined for other output ports. In an aspect, the fabric manages per-flow bandwidth utilization of output port bandwidth capacity by monitoring the same and asserting backpressure toward the queue scheduler for any thread that is exceeding its bandwidth allocation. In another aspect, a switching fabric uses leaky buckets to apply backpressure in response to overutilization of downstream port capacity by particular subflows. In another aspect, a switching fabric includes a cascaded backpressure scheme.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.