Patent ID: 8902750

Claim:
A method for translating between an Ethernet protocol used by a first network component and a Converged Enhanced Ethernet (CEE) protocol used by a second network component, the first network component coupled to the second network component through a CEE Converter, the CEE converter implemented independently and separate from the first and second network components and offloading credit based flow management among the first and second network components, the method comprising: for data flow from the first network component to the second network component: receiving, by the CEE converter, traffic flow definition parameters for a single CEE protocol data flow; calculating, by a credit manager implemented as part of the CEE converter, available buffer space in an outbound frame buffer of the CEE converter for the data flow; communicating, by the credit manager to a CEE credit driver executing in the first network component, the calculated size of the buffer space together with a start sequence number and a flow identifier; responding, by the CEE credit driver to the CEE converter, with Ethernet frames comprising a private header that includes the flow identifier and a sequence number; and in response to a determination, by the CEE converter, that the sequence numbers are monotonically increasing: sending, by the CEE converter to the CEE credit driver, a second message to restore credit representing an acknowledgement message.