The present application provides a packet processing method, device and system. A controller sends a first flow entry to a network device. The first flow entry comprises first importance information used for indicating importance of a first flow entry, where the first importance information is used by the network device to determine, according to a second importance information of a second flow entry in the flow table and the first importance information of the first flow entry, whether to add the first flow entry into a flow table of the network device when there is no idle flow entry resource in the flow table.

Implementations of discovery functionalities in accordance with the present invention are characterized by being exceptionally minimalistic. A primary reason and benefit for such minimalistic implementations relate to these discovery functionalities being implemented via a management processor and associated resources of a system on a chip (SoC) unit as opposed to them being implemented on data processing components of a cluster of nodes (i.e., central processing core components). By focusing on such a minimalist implementation, embodiments of the present invention allow discovery functionalities to be implemented on a relatively low-cost low-power management processor coupled to processing cores that provide for data serving functionality in the cluster of nodes.

A method, in a network controller of a control plane in a software defined network (SDN) coupled to a network element (NE) of a data plane in the SDN, of resynchronizing forwarding table entries of the NE according to forwarding table entries of the network controller is disclosed. The method includes causing the NE to update a first subset of forwarding table entries from a set of one or more of forwarding table entries to include a post-synchronization indicator. The method continues with causing the NE to delete, following the update of the first subset of forwarding table entries, a second subset of zero or more forwarding table entries from the set of forwarding table entries, where each forwarding table entry from the second subset includes a pre-synchronization indicator.

A network interface controller (NIC) capable of efficient packet forwarding is provided. The NIC can be equipped with a host interface, a packet generation logic block, and a forwarding logic block. During operation, the packet generation logic block can obtain, via the host interface, a message from the host device and for a remote device. The packet generation logic block may generate a plurality of packets for the remote device from the message. The forwarding logic block can then send a first subset of packets of the plurality of packets based on ordered delivery. If a first condition is met, the forwarding logic block can send a second subset of packets of the plurality of packets based on unordered delivery. Furthermore, if a second condition is met, the forwarding logic block can send a third subset of packets of the plurality of packets based on ordered delivery.

A network system includes a storage unit that stores topology information in a graph database in chronological order, the topology information including end point information and connection information of logical resources of the virtual network, end point information and connection information of physical resources of the physical network, and correspondence information between the logical resources and the physical resources; a setting information acquirer that acquires setting information of the virtual network from the orchestrator using a change notification from the orchestrator as a trigger; and a topology information management unit that updates the topology information stored in the graph database of the storage unit on the basis of the acquired setting information.

A method includes: A control plane of a network device obtains a first MAC entry, and sends the first MAC entry and a first identifier to a forwarding plane of the network device. The forwarding plane stores the first MAC entry in a first MAC table, and a state of the first MAC entry is set to a valid state. The forwarding plane changes the state of the first MAC entry to an invalid state after first preset duration elapses and when a first preset condition is met, and sets invalid duration for the first MAC entry. The first preset condition is that the forwarding plane does not receive traffic corresponding to a first MAC address within the first preset duration after storing the first MAC entry.

A data processing system with routing tables comprising an operating system for supporting processes, such that the process are associated with one or more resources and the operating system being arranged to police the accessing by processes of resources so as to inhibit a process from accessing resources with which it is not associated. Part of this system is an interface for interfacing between each process and the operating system and a memory for storing state information for at least one process. The interface may be arranged to analyze instructions from the processes to the operating system, and upon detecting an instruction to re-initialize a process cause state information corresponding to that pre-existing state information to be stored in the memory as state information for the re-initialized process and to be associated with the resource.

There is disclosed in one example a method of a work node synchronously load balancing to a multi-node service having an expected maximum of n work nodes, including: provisioning a flow table having m bucket groups, m≥1, the bucket groups including n slots each; enumerating a static integer self-identification id.sub.0; initializing the flow table with id.sub.0 in each slot; performing a discovery iteration, including: discovering a peer device; enumerating a static integer identification id.sub.x for the peer device; assigning id.sub.x to each slot corresponding to a home position for the peer device; and load balancing slots not assigned to a home position according to a deterministic algorithm; and discovering additional nodes and performing discovery iteration for the additional nodes.

A network node (N1) for handling IGP flooding topology (FT) inconsistency by obtaining a new FT and setting a FT flag field (FT field) in a data packet (DP) to indicate whether a link between N1 and a second node (N2) is on the new FT. N1 transmits the DP to N2. N1 receives a second DP from N2 that includes the FT field set by N2 to indicate whether the link between the network node and N2 is on the new FT as determined by N2. N1 sets a FT inconsistency field in a link state packet to indicate an inconsistency in the new FT when the FT field set by N2 and the FT field set by N1 are different for a given time. N1 distributes the LS to at least one node in the network.

A network node (N1) for handling IGP flooding topology (FT) inconsistency by obtaining a new FT and setting a FT flag field (FT field) in a data packet (DP) to indicate whether a link between N1 and a second node (N2) is on the new FT. N1 transmits the DP to N2. N1 receives a second DP from N2 that includes the FT field set by N2 to indicate whether the link between the network node and N2 is on the new FT as determined by N2. N1 sets a FT inconsistency field in a link state packet to indicate an inconsistency in the new FT when the FT field set by N2 and the FT field set by N1 are different for a given time. N1 distributes the LS to at least one node in the network.