In one embodiment, a network device, including packet processing circuitry, which includes at least one interface configured to receive packets, and packet forwarding circuitry configured to make respective forwarding decisions for respective ones of the packets, wherein the packet processing circuitry is configured to assign sequence numbers to the packets in at least one stage of packet processing, find missing packets in at least one corresponding later stage of the packet processing responsively to checking for missing sequence numbers among the assigned sequence numbers, and report the missing packets.

Methods and apparatuses for detecting timestamp discontinuities and video resolution discontinuities within a packet stream and marking locations of the detected discontinuities within the packet stream are described. Prior to transmission of the packet stream, an electronic device may perform timestamp discontinuity detection by acquiring a sequence of packets to be transmitted, identifying a first timestamp associated with an earliest packet within the sequence of packets, identifying a second timestamp associated with a latest packet within the sequence of packets, determining a timestamp time difference between the first timestamp and the second timestamp, determining a maximum chunk time difference based on a data rate at which the sequence of packets were encoded and a data size of the encoded packets, and detecting that a timestamp discontinuity exists within the sequence of packets if the timestamp time difference is greater than the maximum chunk time difference.

For a network with host machines that are hosting virtual machines, a method for facilitating BUM (broadcast, unknown unicast, and multicast) traffic between a hardware switch (e.g., ToR switch) and the host machines is provided. The network has a set of host machines configured as a cluster of replicators for replicating BUM traffic from the hardware switch to the host machines. A set of network controllers establishes failure-detection tunnels for links between the hardware switch and the replicator cluster. The replicator cluster informs the set of controllers of a change in the membership of the replicator cluster to initiate an update to the active failure-detection sessions. The set of network controllers communicates with the replicator cluster and a ToR switch to establish bidirectional forwarding detection (BFD) sessions between one or more replicator nodes in the replicator cluster and the ToR switch.

In one embodiment, a network device, including packet processing circuitry, which includes at least one interface configured to receive packets, and packet forwarding circuitry configured to make respective forwarding decisions for respective ones of the packets, wherein the packet processing circuitry is configured to assign sequence numbers to the packets in at least one stage of packet processing, find missing packets in at least one corresponding later stage of the packet processing responsively to checking for missing sequence numbers among the assigned sequence numbers, and report the missing packets.

A packet processing method includes generating, by a processor of a network device, a first encoding task based on M original packets in a to-be-processed first data stream, where M is a positive integer, and where the first encoding task instructs to encode the M original packets; and performing, by a target hardware engine of the network device and based on the first encoding task, forward error correction (FEC) encoding on the M original packets to obtain R redundant packets, where R is a positive integer.

A switch comprises: a register; a control entry holding part that holds control entries set by a predetermined control apparatus; a packet processing part that selects a control entry to be applied to a received packet by referring to a value on the register in addition to match conditions for the control entry; a register change part that changes the value on the register in a case where a change instruction for the value on the register is set to the control entry selected.

Provided is a communication control method of controlling communication between a first electrical switch and a second electrical switch each connected via an optical network and via an electrical network and each responsible for one or more devices to enable a data transfer with high reliability and low latency. The communication control method includes processes of (A) determining the presence or absence of blocking in relation to a first setup request of an optical circuit from the first electrical switch to the second electrical switch and (B) performing, if the blocking is present, at least one process of a first process of transmitting, from the first electrical switch, a second setup request of the optical circuit from the first electrical switch to the second electrical switch and a second process of transmitting a packet or a packet flow related to the first setup request from the first electrical switch via the electrical network.

The present invention is directed to data communication systems and techniques thereof. In a specific embodiment, the present invention provides a network connector that includes an interface for connecting to a host. The interface includes a circuit for utilizing two data paths for the host. The circuit is configured to transform the host address to different addresses based on the data path being used. There are other embodiments as well.

A data sending method, a sending device, a data receiving method, and a receiving device, the method including obtaining, by a sending device, a target medium access control protocol data unit (MPDU) by performing encapsulation processing on an internet protocol (IP) data packet of a specified service, where the sending device and a receiving device are connected through Wi-Fi, generating a backup MPDU of the target MPDU, and sending the target MPDU and the backup MPDU to the receiving device.

A network switch is configured to receive packet data. The network switch includes a memory and a processor. The memory is configured to store an access control list and an abnormity detecting program, filter the packet data according to the access control list, and perform an abnormity detecting procedure on the packet data according to the abnormity detecting program. When at least one abnormity event occurs in one of a plurality of time intervals, a counting value increases. When the counting value reaches a counting threshold value, the memory sends an abnormity notification to the processor and the processor performs an abnormity processing procedure on the packet data.