Examples describe a manner of scheduling packet segment fetches at a rate that is based on one or more of: a packet drop indication, packet drop rate, incast level, operation of queues in SAF or VCT mode, or fabric congestion level. Headers of packets can be fetched faster than payload or body portions of packets and processed prior to queueing of all body portions. In the event a header is identified as droppable, fetching of the associated body portions can be halted and any body portion that is queued can be discarded. Fetch overspeed can be applied for packet headers or body portions associated with packet headers that are approved for egress.

Described in this document, among other things, is an overload protection system that can protect data sinks from overload by controlling the volume of data sent to those data sinks in a fine-grained manner. The protection system preferably sits in between edge servers, or other producers of data, and data sinks that will receive some or all of the data. Preferably, each data sink owner defines a policy to control how and when overload protection will be applied. Each policy can include definitions of how to monitor the stream of data for overload and specify one or more conditions upon which traffic shaping actions are necessary. In embodiments, a policy can contain a multi-part specification to identify the class(es) of traffic to monitor to see if the conditions have been triggered.

Methods and systems for managing packet flow in a local network in a manner that allows network devices at the edge of the network to use minimal buffer memory while maximizing use of bandwidth allocated on an interconnect between the local network and an external network. Packet flows facing external network problems are scaled back, reducing redundant traffic on the interconnect and allowing for use of small buffers in edge devices. A flow source marks a subset of packets within a flow for preferential treatment within the local network. The flow source then adjusts the flow rate only responsive to failures in transmission of the marked packets. In some implementations, an edge device removes the markings prior to packet egress. The local network honors the preferential treatment markings such that a loss of a marked packet is more likely to occur on an external network than on the local network.

A method for operating an Ethernet communication device having multiple external physical interfaces for a motor vehicle includes the following steps: detecting a special state on at least one of the interfaces, generating a control signal to adapt the interface in the special state if the special state is detected; and blocking a forwarding of a message packet arriving on the interface in the special state to a media access control unit of the Ethernet communication device on the basis of the control signal.

A system and method for supporting load balancing in a multi-tenant cluster environment, in accordance with an embodiment. One or more tenants can be supported and each associated with a partition, which are each in turn associated with one or more end nodes. The method can provide a plurality of switches, the plurality of switches comprising a plurality of leaf switches and at least one switch at another level, wherein each of the plurality of switches comprise at least one port. The method can assign each node a weight parameter, and based upon this parameter, the method can route the plurality of end nodes within the multi-tenant cluster environment, wherein the routing attempts to preserve partition isolation.

A relay apparatus includes a relay unit to which a plurality of communication lines are connected, and that relays a message received from one communication line, by transmitting the message on another communication line, a switch for switching between a connected state where at least two communication lines included in the plurality of communication lines are connected directly and a separated state where the communication lines are separated apart, and a relay rule switching unit for switching a message relay rule for the relay unit depending on a switching state of the switch. The relay apparatus also includes a communication state detection unit that detects a communication state of the communication lines, and switches the switch in accordance with the communication state detected by the communication state detection unit.

Methods, computer program products, and systems are presented. The methods include, for instance: a gateway stack that includes a master, a backup, and at least one slave amongst nodes of the GS based on an election pursuant to a gateway stack protocol. The gateway stack provides gateway services for a Network Virtualization over Layer 3 (NVO3) network in a fail-safe manner by utilizing all of the nodes in the gateway stack. A data interface between the gateway stack and a switch is aggregated to evenly distribute inbound packets amongst the nodes of the gateway stack.

A system and method for supporting network isolation in a multi-tenant cluster environment. An exemplary method can support one or more tenants, and can associate each of the one or more tenants with a partition of a plurality of partitions, and can also associate each of the plurality of partitions with one or more nodes of a plurality of nodes, each of the plurality of nodes being associated with a leaf switch of a plurality of switches. The method can mark each of the plurality of partitions with a policy parameter. The method can assign each node of the plurality of nodes a partitioning order based on the marked on the partition associated with each node. Finally, the method can, based at least upon the marking of the partition of the plurality of partitions, generate one or more linear forwarding tables for use in the multi-tenant cluster environment.

Methods, computer program products, and systems are presented. The methods include, for instance: a gateway stack that includes a master, a backup, and at least one slave amongst nodes of the GS based on an election pursuant to a gateway stack protocol. The gateway stack provides gateway services for a Network Virtualization over Layer 3 (NVO3) network in a fail-safe manner by utilizing all of the nodes in the gateway stack. A data interface between the gateway stack and a switch is aggregated to evenly distribute inbound packets amongst the nodes of the gateway stack.

A system and method for supporting load balancing in a multi-tenant cluster environment, in accordance with an embodiment. One or more tenants can be supported and each associated with a partition, which are each in turn associated with one or more end nodes. The method can provide a plurality of switches, the plurality of switches comprising a plurality of leaf switches and at least one switch at another level, wherein each of the plurality of switches comprise at least one port. The method can assign each node a weight parameter, and based upon this parameter, the method can route the plurality of end nodes within the multi-tenant cluster environment, wherein the routing attempts to preserve partition isolation.