Embodiments of this application relate to the field of communications technologies, and disclose a flow control method and apparatus, to resolve a prior-art problem such as packet loss, packet accumulation, or network congestion that occurs after a packet is switched between priority queues. A specific solution is as follows: A first device receives a first packet sent by a second device, where the first packet carries a first field and a second field, the first field carries a first priority, and the second field carries a second priority; the first device performs flow control based on the first priority in the first packet; and the first device performs queue scheduling on the first packet based on the second priority in the first packet.

A method and system may allow for the scheduling of transmissions. A device may send a transmission request over a network where the request may be an upload request or a download request. Traffic may be monitored on the network and the traffic may determine when the transmission is to be scheduled. Depending on the traffic and the type of transmission, the transmission may be scheduled for a future time or may be added to a queue of pending transmissions. Once commenced, the transmission may be paused and resumed based on continually monitored traffic on the network.

To accommodate graceful offloading of connections from a port of a network element, thereby allowing the port to be decommissioned, both existing and new connections allocated to that port according to a load balancing protocol are replicated on a backup port. Thereafter, or concurrently therewith, the port is configured to drop acknowledgements of the new connections, and the port is monitored so as to eventually identify an absence of connections thereon. At that time, the port may be decommissioned inasmuch as all new connections will have been established on the backup port and no previously existing connections on the original port will remain.

Some embodiments provide a method for a hardware forwarding element. The method adds a received packet to a buffer. The method determines whether adding the packet to the buffer causes the buffer to pass one of multiple flow control thresholds, each of which corresponds to a different packet priority. When adding the packet to the buffer causes the buffer to pass a particular flow control threshold corresponding to a particular priority, the method generates a flow control message for the particular priority.

There is provided methods and apparatuses for transferring photonic cells or frames between a photonic switch and an electronic switch enabling a scalable data center cloud system with photonic functions transparently embedded into an electronic chassis. In various embodiments, photonic interface functions may be transparently embedded into existing switch chips (or switch cards) without changes in the line cards. The embedded photonic interface functions may provide the switch cards with the ability to interface with both existing line cards and photonic switches. In order to embed photonic interface functions without changes on the existing line cards, embodiments use two-tier buffering with a pause signalling or pause messaging scheme for managing the two-tier buffer memories.

Back-pressure control in a telecommunications network, in which a method of back-pressure control in a transport network is provided. A buffer state of a buffer is monitored. A condition indicative of back-pressure is also determined in response to a change of the buffer state passing a predetermined limit. In response to determining the condition indicative of back-pressure, a back-pressure notification message is created and, subsequently, transmitted to at least one second network node.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a switch, a controller, a system, and a link quality detection method, and pertain to the field of network technologies. In the present invention, the controller determines a detection path, and controls each switch on the detection path to obtain a detection packet, so that after determining that the obtained detection packet matches a prestored flow table entry, each switch adds OAM information to the successfully matched detection packet; and the controller obtains a termination detection packet, and determines link quality according to the termination detection packet. Each switch on a detection path does not need to use a corresponding link quality detection protocol to detect link quality, and only needs to add OAM information to an obtained detection packet. In this way, not only a structure of each switch can be simplified, but also operations of each switch are simplified.

It is recognized herein that certain ones of the requests subject to abatement, otherwise referred to as overload control, have more value (monetary or otherwise) than other ones of the requests. The relative importance of requests may be advantageously considered when deciding which requests are discarded or deferred for alleviation of an overload situation at the OCS. Further, it is also recognized herein that certain ones of the requests may be more sensitive or less sensitive to processing delays, meaning that certain requests are more amenable to buffering-based abatement than others. The methods and apparatuses disclosed herein provide, among other things, mechanisms by which an OCS configures the overload controls imposed at CTFs or other requesting entities in a communication network, meaning that the OCS can prioritize which requests are sent to it during overload conditions, at least in terms of the underlying services or circumstances associated with the request.

A wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) is configured to transmit scheduling information over a first uplink channel, on a condition that the WTRU has an uplink scheduling grant to transmit uplink data. In response to a triggering condition, when the WTRU is not transmitting on the first uplink channel, the WTRU is configured to transmit a plurality of a same value over a second uplink channel. The second uplink channel is a control channel. The transmission of the plurality of the same value is based on having an insufficient uplink scheduling grant for the first uplink channel.

The present disclosure relates to congestion flow identification methods. One example method includes obtaining, by a network device, a queue length of a non-congestion flow queue, where the non-congestion flow queue includes a data packet or description information of the data packet, determining, by the network device, a target output port of a target data packet when the length of the non-congestion flow queue is greater than or equal to a first threshold, where the target data packet is a data packet waiting to enter the non-congestion flow queue or a next data packet waiting to be output from the non-congestion flow queue, and when utilization of the target output port is greater than or equal to a second threshold, determining, by the network device, that a flow corresponding to the target data packet is a congestion flow.