Examples include a method of determining a first traffic overload protection policy for a first service provided by a first virtual network function in a network of virtual network functions in a computing system and determining a second traffic overload protection policy for a second service provided by a second virtual network function in the network of virtual network functions. The method includes applying the first traffic overload protection policy to the first virtual network function and the second traffic overload protection policy to the second virtual network function, wherein the first traffic overload protection policy and the second traffic overload protection policy are different.

A manner of managing congestion in a data-traffic network. In one embodiment a network node such as a bridge, switch, or router includes an AQM having a PI controller configured to calculate p using the difference between Q and a Target Q, wherein p is p.sup.0.5 and p is the probability that a received packet will be dropped or marked, and some drop decision functions are configured to indicate that the node should drop a received packet by comparing p to two random values. A marking decision function may also be present and configured to indicate that the node should mark a received packet by comparing p to one random value. A congestion control classifier, which is in some embodiments an ECN classifier, is also present to classify a received packet and facilitate making the proper dropping or marking decision.

A traffic management (TM) implementation method and apparatus, and a network device, where the TM implementation apparatus is located aside a processor or a switching fabric chip, receives a packet management request sent by the processor or the switching fabric chip, where the packet management request includes a queue identifier, and the queue identifier is used to identify a flow queue in which the processor or the switching fabric chip stores a data packet, performs traffic management on the packet management request, and generates a packet management response according to a management result, where the packet management response includes a management indication and the queue identifier, sends the packet management response to the processor or the switching fabric chip such that the processor or the switching fabric chip processes, according to the management indication, the data packet in the flow queue corresponding to the queue identifier.

A manner of managing congestion in a data-traffic network. In one embodiment a network node such as a bridge, switch, or router includes an AQM having a PI controller configured to calculate p using the difference between Q and a Target Q, wherein p is p.sup.0.5 and p is the probability that a received packet will be dropped or marked, and some drop decision functions are configured to indicate that the node should drop a received packet by comparing p to two random values. A marking decision function may also be present and configured to indicate that the node should mark a received packet by comparing p to one random value. A congestion control classifier, which is in some embodiments an ECN classifier, is also present to classify a received packet and facilitate making the proper dropping or marking decision.

Systems and methods for protecting external memory resources to prevent bandwidth collapse in a network processor. One embodiment is a network processor including an input port configured to receive packets from a source device, on-chip memory configured to store packets in queues, an external memory interface configured to couple the on-chip memory with an external memory providing a backing store to the on-chip memory, and bandwidth monitor configured to measure a bandwidth utilization of the external memory. The network processor also includes a processor configured to apply the bandwidth utilization of the external memory to a congestion notification profile, to generate one or more congestion notifications based on the bandwidth utilization applied to the congestion notification profile, and to send the one or more congestion notifications to the source device to request decreasing packet rate for decreasing the bandwidth utilization of the external memory.

Provided are a method and device for processing packet congestion. The method includes: receiving a packet fragment of a packet and fragment parameters and acquiring congestion parameters required for processing packet congestion according to the fragment parameters; when the packet fragment is an SOP fragment in the packet, acquiring an average queue size and a size threshold of the packet according to the fragment parameters and the congestion parameters and processing the packet. By acquiring the average queue size and the size threshold of the packet according to the fragment parameters and congestion parameters received and processing the packet according to the relationship between the average queue size and the size thresholds when a packet fragment received is an SOP fragment, the solution effectively eliminate the packet congestion in a communication network, accelerate the operation speed of processing the packet congestion and greatly save an internal cache space.

Methods and systems for providing IP services in an integrated fashion are provided. According to one embodiment, a flow cache is established having multiple entries each identifying one of multiple VR flows through a VR-based network device and corresponding forwarding state information. A packet is received at an input port of a line interface module of the network device and forwarded to a VRE. Flow-based packet classification is performed by the VRE. An attempt is made to retrieve an entry of the flow cache based on a result of the flow-based packet classification. On a flow cache hit, one or more appropriate packet transformations are identified for application to the packet and it is determined whether to process the packet with a VSE based on the corresponding forwarding state information. On a flow cache miss, the new VR flow is added to the flow cache by performing flow learning.

A master network interface device (NID) receives a first packet flow associated with a particular customer via a first link of a link aggregation group (LAG). The master NID also receives, from a non-master NID, an indication of a second packet flow, associated with the particular customer, that are traversing a second link of the LAG. The master NID applies collective rate limiting criteria to the first packet flow and to the second packet flow, such that the collective rate limiting criteria enforces a SLA rate for the particular customer. The master NID forwards at least some of the first packet flow via the first link, based on the rate limiting criteria as applied to the first packet flow. The master NID also sends, to the non-master network interface device, an indication of the rate limiting criteria as applied to the second packet flow.

A method for receiving a packet descriptor associated with a packet and a queue number indicating a queue stored within a memory unit, determining a priority level of the packet and an amount of free memory available in the memory unit. Applying a global drop probability to generate a global drop indicator and applying a queue drop probability to generate a queue drop indicator. The global drop probability is a function of the amount of free memory. The queue drop probability is a function of instantaneous queue depth or drop precedence value. The packet is transmitted whenever the priority level is high. When the priority level is low, the packet is transmitted when both the global drop indicator and the queue drop indicator are a logic low value. When the priority level is low, the packet is not transmitted when either drop indicator is a logic low value.

Methods and apparatus are disclosed for signalling congestion being caused by data items such as packets, received at a network element such as a router, in a communications network such as the Internet, or being caused by items otherwise requiring service or capacity from a shared resource. Preferred embodiments of the method involve identifying whether or not received data items received at a network element are capable of carrying congestion indications such as ECN marks, and for those that are capable, assigning congestion indications to the data items in dependence on a queue length characterization based on a substantially current, instantaneous measurement of the length of the queue, whereas for those that are not capable, a sanction such as dropping may be applied in dependence on a different queue length characterization based on a weighted moving average of current, recent, and less recent measurements of the length of the queue.