Approaches, techniques, and mechanisms are disclosed for reutilizing discarded link data in a buffer space for buffering data units in a network device. Rather than wasting resources on garbage collection of such link data when a data unit is dropped, the link data is used as a free list that indicates buffer entries in which new data may be stored. In an embodiment, operations of the buffer may further be enhanced by re-using the discarded link data as link data for a new data unit. The link data for a formerly buffered data unit may be assigned exclusively to a new data unit, which uses the discarded link data to determine where to store its constituent data. As a consequence, the discarded link data actually serves as valid link data for the new data unit, and new link data need not be generated for the new data unit.

A multicast rule is represented in a hierarchical linked list with N tiers. Each tier or level in the hierarchical linked list corresponds to a network layer of a network stack that requires replication. Redundant groups in each tier are eliminated such that the groups in each tier are stored exactly once in a replication table. A multicast replication engine traverses the hierarchical linked list and replicates a packet according to each node in the hierarchical linked list.

A queue management method and apparatus are disclosed. The queue management method includes: storing a first packet to a first buffer cell included in a first macrocell, where the first macrocell is enqueued to a first entity queue, the first macrocell includes N consecutive buffer cells, and the first buffer cell belongs to the N buffer cells; correcting, based on a packet length of the first packet, an average packet length in the first macrocell that is obtained before the first packet is stored, to obtain a current average packet length in the first macrocell; and generating, based on the first macrocell and the first entity queue, queue information corresponding to the first macrocell of the first macrocell in the first entity queue, a head pointer in the first macrocell, a tail pointer in the first macrocell, and the current average packet length in the first macrocell.

A flow control device includes an analysis unit identifying a flow of a received packet, a plurality of queues temporarily storing packets sorted according to each flow, an allocation information storage unit storing allocation information regarding a queue allocated for each flow, a sorting unit deciding a queue to be a storage destination of the received packet and sorts the packet based on a result identified by the analysis unit and the allocation information, a saved packet holding unit saving a packet belonging to a flow determined to have no allocation information regarding the queue to be allocated by the sorting unit, and a transmission unit transmitting the packet temporarily stored in the plurality of queues and the packet saved in the saved packet holding unit to a processing unit that processes a packet.

A packet processing method and device are provided, to save CPU resources consumed by parsing a packet. The method includes: parsing, by an intelligent network interface card, a received first packet to obtain an identifier of the first packet; updating, by the intelligent network interface card, a control field of a first memory buffer based on the identifier of the first packet; storing, by the intelligent network interface card, a payload of the first packet or a packet header and a payload of the first packet into the first address space through DMA based on an aggregation position of the first packet; aggregating, by a host, the first address information and at least one piece of second address information based on an updated control field in the first mbuf; and reading, by a virtual machine, address information, to obtain data in an address space indicated by the address information.

A method during a first cycle includes receiving, at a first port of a device, a plurality of network packets. The method may include storing, by the device, at least some portion of a first packet of the plurality of network packets at a first address within a first record bank and storing, by the device and concurrent with storing the at least some portion of the first packet from the first address, at least some portion of a second packet of the plurality of network packets at a second address within a second record bank, different than the first record bank. The method may further include storing, by the device, the first address within the first record bank and the second address within the second record bank in the first link stash associated with the first record bank and updating, by the device, a tail pointer to reference the second address.

Systems and methods for efficiently storing a distributed ledger of records. In an exemplary aspect, a method may include generating a record comprising a payload and a header, wherein the payload stores a state of a data object associated with a distributed ledger and the header stores a reference to state information in the payload. The method may further comprise including the record in a trunk filament comprising a first plurality of records indicative of historic states of the data object, wherein the trunk filament is part of a first lifeline. The method may include identifying a jet of the distributed ledger, wherein the jet is a logical structure storing a second lifeline with a second plurality of records. In response to determining that the first plurality of records is related to the second plurality of records, the method may include storing the first lifeline in the jet.

Embodiments of the application describe a packet processing method and a router. The method includes: receiving, by an input line card, at least one packet; obtaining, by the input line card, information about an available first buffer block in a third buffer module, where the third buffer module is a first buffer module that includes an available first buffer block; allocating, by the input line card, a third buffer block to each of the at least one packet based on at least one buffer information block stored in the input line card and the information about an available first buffer block; and buffering, by the input line card, each packet into the third buffer block. Distributed packet buffering can be implemented by using the method.

When a measure of buffer space queued for garbage collection in a network device grows beyond a certain threshold, one or more actions are taken to decreasing an enqueue rate of certain classes of traffic, such as of multicast traffic, whose reception may have caused and/or be likely to exacerbate garbage-collection-related performance issues. When the amount of buffer space queued for garbage collection shrinks to an acceptable level, these one or more actions may be reversed. In an embodiment, to more optimally handle multi-destination traffic, queue admission control logic for high-priority multi-destination data units, such as mirrored traffic, may be performed for each destination of the data units prior to linking the data units to a replication queue. If a high-priority multi-destination data unit is admitted to any queue, the high-priority multi-destination data unit can no longer be dropped, and is linked to a replication queue for replication.

A multicast rule is represented in a hierarchical linked list with N tiers. Each tier or level in the hierarchical linked list corresponds to a network layer of a network stack that requires replication. Redundant groups in each tier are eliminated such that the groups in each tier are stored exactly once in a replication table. A multicast replication engine traverses the hierarchical linked list and replicates a packet according to each node in the hierarchical linked list.