Some embodiments provide a network forwarding IC with packet processing pipelines, at least one of which includes a parser, a set of match-action stages, and a deparser. The parser is configured to receive a packet and generate a PHV including a first number of data containers storing data for the packet. A first match-action stage is configured to receive the PHV from the parser and expand the PHV to a second, larger number of data containers storing data for the packet. Each of a set of intermediate match-action stage is configured to receive the expanded PHV from a previous stage and provide the expanded PHV to a subsequent stage. A final match-action stage is configured to receive the expanded PHV and reduce the PHV to the first number of data containers. The deparser is configured to receive the reduced PHV from the final match-action stage and reconstruct the packet.

Example methods and systems for logical network packet handling are described. In one example, a physical network interface controller (PNIC) may receive an ingress encapsulated packet associated with a packet flow via a physical network. The ingress encapsulated packet may include an outer header and an inner packet that is destined for a virtualized computing instance. The ingress encapsulated packet may be steered towards a processing pipeline for processing to generate a processed packet. The processing pipeline may include (a) retrieving a logical network policy associated with the packet flow from a datastore on the PNIC; and (b) performing decapsulation to remove the outer header and one or more actions on the inner packet according to the logical network policy. The processed packet may be forwarded towards the virtualized computing instance via a virtual function supported by the PNIC or a physical network connected to the PNIC.

Some embodiments of the invention provide a network forwarding element that can be dynamically reconfigured to adjust its data message processing to stay within a desired operating temperature or power consumption range. In some embodiments, the network forwarding element includes (1) a data-plane forwarding circuit (“data plane”) to process data tuples associated with data messages received by the IC, and (2) a control-plane circuit (“control plane”) for configuring the data plane forwarding circuit. The data plane includes several data processing stages to process the data tuples. The data plane also includes an idle-signal injecting circuit that receives from the control plane configuration data that the control plane generates based on the IC's temperature. Based on the received configuration data, the idle-signal injecting circuit generates idle control signals for the data processing stages. Each stage that receives an idle control signal enters an idle state during which the majority of the components of that stage do not perform any operations, which reduces the power consumed and temperature generated by that stage during its idle state.

A system administrator can specify NAT mappings to perform NAT translations in a switch. The administrator can specify an ACL to filter packets to be translated. Filter rules generated from the ACL are stored in a first memory store in a switch and NAT rules generated from the NAT mappings are stored in a second memory store separate from the first memory store. When a packet matches one of the filter rules a tag that identifies the ACL is associated with the packet. When the tagged packet matches one of the NAT rules, the packet is translated according to the matched NAT rule.

A control system including several controllers for managing several switching elements. A first controller registers a second controller for receiving a notification when a data tuple changes in a network information base (NIB) storage of the first controller that stores data for managing a set of switching elements. The first controller changes the data tuple in the NIB. The first controller sends the notification to the second controller of the change to the data tuple in the NIB. The first and second controllers operate on two different computing devices. Each controller receives logical control plane data for specifying logical datapath sets and converts the logical control plane data to physical control plane data for enabling the switching elements to implement the logical datapath sets.

Some embodiments of the invention provide a forwarding element that can be configured through in-band data-plane messages from a remote controller that is a physically separate machine from the forwarding element. The forwarding element of some embodiments has data plane circuits that include several configurable message-processing stages, several storage queues, and a data-plane configurator. A set of one or more message-processing stages of the data plane are configured (1) to process configuration messages received by the data plane from the remote controller and (2) to store the configuration messages in a set of one or more storage queues. The data-plane configurator receives the configuration messages stored in the set of storage queues and configures one or more of the configurable message-processing stages based on configuration data in the configuration messages.

Some embodiments provide a network forwarding IC with packet processing pipelines, at least one of which includes a parser, a set of match-action stages, and a deparser. The parser is configured to receive a packet and generate a PHV including a first number of data containers storing data for the packet. A first match-action stage is configured to receive the PHV from the parser and expand the PHV to a second, larger number of data containers storing data for the packet. Each of a set of intermediate match-action stage is configured to receive the expanded PHV from a previous stage and provide the expanded PHV to a subsequent stage. A final match-action stage is configured to receive the expanded PHV and reduce the PHV to the first number of data containers. The deparser is configured to receive the reduced PHV from the final match-action stage and reconstruct the packet.

Some embodiments provide a method for an ingress packet processing pipeline of a network forwarding integrated circuit (IC). The ingress packet processing pipeline is for receiving packets from a port of the network forwarding IC and processing the packets to assign different packets to different queues of a traffic management unit of the network forwarding IC. The method receives state data from the traffic management unit. The method stores the state data in a stateful table. The method assigns a particular packet to a particular queue based on the state data received from the traffic management unit and stored in the stateful table.

Example methods and systems for logical network packet handling are described. In one example, a physical network interface controller (PNIC) may receive an ingress encapsulated packet associated with a packet flow via a physical network. The ingress encapsulated packet may include an outer header and an inner packet that is destined for a virtualized computing instance. The ingress encapsulated packet may be steered towards a processing pipeline for processing to generate a processed packet. The processing pipeline may include (a) retrieving a logical network policy associated with the packet flow from a datastore on the PNIC; and (b) performing decapsulation to remove the outer header and one or more actions on the inner packet according to the logical network policy. The processed packet may be forwarded towards the virtualized computing instance via a virtual function supported by the PNIC or a physical network connected to the PNIC.

Some embodiments provide a network forwarding element with a data-plane forwarding circuit that has a parameter collecting circuit to store and distribute parameter values computed by several machines in a network. In some embodiments, the machines perform distributed computing operations, and the parameter values that compute are parameter values associated with the distributed computing operations. The parameter collecting circuit of the data-plane forwarding circuit (data plane) in some embodiments (1) stores a set of parameter values computed and sent by a first set of machines, and (2) distributes the collected parameter values to a second set of machines once it has collected the set of parameter values from all the machines in the first set. The first and second sets of machines are the same set of machines in some embodiments, while they are different sets of machines (e.g., one set has at least one machine that is not in the other set) in other embodiments. In some embodiments, the parameter collecting circuit performs computations on the parameter values that it collects and distributes the result of the computations once it has processed all the parameter values distributed by the first set of machines. The computations are aggregating operations (e.g., adding, averaging, etc.) that combine corresponding subset of parameter values distributed by the first set of machines.