Systems and methods include receiving an Optical Transport Network (OTN) signal; segmenting the OTN signal into one or more flows of packets; and transmitting the one or more flows of packets spread over one or more Ethernet links. The one or more flows can be transmitted over a Leaf/Spine network, and the one or more flows can be elephant and/or mice flows.

The invention provides an electronic device and a flow control method thereof, wherein the electronic device can transmit a specific pause frame to another electronic device, or receive a specific pause frame from the other electronic device. The specific pause frame includes a local port flow control ability and a remote port congestion status for the electronic device to perform the most appropriate processing of each received packet, or to selectively transmit a pause frame to external devices to improve the efficiency of the network system.

A first command is scheduled on a command bus, where the first command requires use of a data bus resource at a first time period after scheduling the first command. Prior to the first time period, a second command is identified according to a scheduling policy. A determination is made whether scheduling the second command on the command bus will cause a conflict in usage of the at least one data bus resource. In response to determining that scheduling the second command will cause the conflict in usage, a third lower-priority command is identified for which scheduling on the command bus will not cause the conflict in usage. The third command is scheduled on the command bus prior to scheduling the second command, even though it has lower priority than the second command.

A network element (16) includes ingress optics (22) configured to receive a client signal; egress optics (30) configured to transmit packets over one or more Ethernet links (20) in a network (12); circuitry (26, 28) interconnecting the ingress optics (22) and the egress optics (30), wherein the circuitry is configured to segment an Optical Transport Network (OTN) signal from the client signal into one or more flows; and provide the one or more flows to the egress optics for transmission over the one or more of Ethernet links (20) to a second network element (18) that is configured to provide the one or more flows into the OTN signal.

A network element includes a transmit-queue for transmitting packets from at least two sources, each source having a predefined priority level, to a headroom buffer in a peer network element. Flow-control circuitry receives from the peer network element signaling that indicates a number of credits for transmitting packets to the peer network element, manages a current number of credits available for transmission from the transmit-queue, responsive to the signaling, selects a threshold priority based on the current number of credits for the transmit-queue; and transmits packets associated with data sources of the transmit-queue that are higher in priority than the threshold priority, and refrain from transmitting other packets associated with the transmit-queue.

Methods and apparatus for non-sequential packet transfer. Prior art multi-processor devices implement a complete network communications stack at each processor. The disclosed embodiments provide techniques for delivering network layer (L3) and/or transport layer (L4) data payloads in the order of receipt, rather than according to the data link layer (L2) order. The described techniques enable e.g., earlier packet delivery. Such design topologies can operate within a substantially smaller memory footprint compared to prior art solutions. As a related benefit, applications that are unaffected by data link layer corruptions can receive data immediately (rather than waiting for the re-transmission of an unrelated L4 data flow) and thus the overall network latency can be greatly reduced and user experience can be improved.

A time synchronization maintenance method includes determining, by a node of a mesh communication network, a transmission time to transmit data in a transmission queue. The method also includes determining, by the node, an amount of time until commencement of a next beacon signal slot used to transmit a time synchronization beacon signal from the node or another node of the mesh communication network. Further, when the transmission time is greater than the amount of time until commencement of the next beacon signal slot, the method includes delaying transmission, by the node, of at least a portion of the data in the transmission queue until completion of the next beacon signal slot.

For example, a wireless communication station (STA) may be configured to determine whether a stream of frames is suitable for out-of-order delivery from a first Medium Access Control layer (MAC-layer) process to a second MAC-layer process, the second MAC-layer process is above the first MAC-layer process; and, based on a determination that the stream of frames is suitable for out-of-order delivery, to deliver to the second MAC-layer process one or more frames of the stream of frames according to an out-of-order delivery scheme.

Control logic circuitry stores packets in a queue in an order in which the packets are received. A head entry of the queue corresponds to an oldest packet in the order. The control logic circuitry receives flow control information corresponding to multiple target devices including at least a first target device and a second target device. The control logic circuitry determines, using the flow control information, whether the oldest packet stored in the head entry can be transferred to the first target device, and in response to determining that the oldest packet stored in the head entry cannot be transferred to the first target device, i) selects an other entry with an other packet behind the head entry according to the order, and ii) transfers the other packet to the second target device prior to transferring the oldest packet in the head entry to the first target device.

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.