Hybrid arrival-occupancy based congestion management

摘要

A method for hybrid arrival-occupancy based congestion management includes increasing a recent arrivals counter 502 associated with a data flow from one or more sources in response to receiving a data packet from one of the sources and storing the data packet in a buffer including multiple storage units 500. The method includes: determining if the buffer is congested 504; randomly selecting an occupied unit of the buffer 508; and determining the source of the packet stored in the occupied unit of the buffer 510; generating a congestion notification message 506; sending the congestion notification message to the source of the packet stored in the occupied unit of the buffer if the recent arrivals counter for that source exceeds a threshold value (or has a positive value) and decreasing the recent arrivals counter associated with the source of the packet stored in the occupied unit of the buffer 514; and discarding the congestion notification message if the recent arrivals counter has a zero (or below threshold) value 516. The arrangement serves to provide a fairness for which sources receive congestion notification messages based upon the proportion of the buffer space they are currently using. The checking against a recent arrivals counter serves to avoid over-throttling of sources not currently receiving their fair share of the buffer. There is also described a similar arrangement using culprit data flows. In one embodiment culprit data flows may be those flows which have a positive recent arrivals counter value.