Patent ID: 9503382
Filing Date: 2016-11-22
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A method of performing congestion management in a network, the method comprising: monitoring, at a physical switch in the network, both data packets and data requests received at the switch over one or more links in the network; based on the monitoring, determining a congestion status at the switch; determining, at the switch, that the congestion status indicates that there is congestion at the switch, the determining including examining a plurality of flags in a header field of an entry corresponding to a flow in a flow table at the switch, the plurality of flags including a forward congestion flag that when set indicates that a source of the data packets for the data flow is sending the data packets more quickly than the switch can process the data packets, and a backward congestion flag that when set indicates that a destination of the data packets for the data flow is sending the data requests more quickly than the switch can process the data requests; based on the forward congestion flag being set and congestion being related to the data packets received at the switch from the source at a first rate, transmitting a first message from the switch to the source, the first message requesting the source to send the data packets at a second rate that is slower than the first rate; and based on the backward congestion flag being set and congestion being related to the data requests received at the switch from the destination at a third rate, transmitting a second message from the switch to the destination, the second message requesting the destination to send the data requests at a fourth rate that is slower than the third rate.