Method for congestion control in a network interface card
View Patent ↗Congestion detection is implemented on the ingress direction, egress direction, or both directions in a network interface controller. Congestion notification is facilitated between a source and a destination through a network interface controller. In accordance with an aspect, a NIC is configured to label ingress packets—coming from the network—in relation to the presence of congestion. In accordance with another aspect, the NIC is configured to label egress packets—going to the network—in relation to the presence of congestion. A full offload NIC is equipped to operate on the packet labels in the presence of congestion and to react appropriately if it is on the receiving end, sending end, or both.
1. Network interface circuitry configured to couple a host computer and a network such that the host is interoperable with a peer via the network, the network interface circuitry comprising:
congestion detection circuitry configured to, based on an operating state of the network interface circuitry relative to a transport layer flow of packets being communicated between the host and the peer, detect congestion at the network interface circuitry, relative to the transport layer flow; and
indication providing circuitry configured to provide an indication of the detected congestion correlated to the transport layer flow,
wherein the network interface circuitry further comprises protocol processing circuitry configured to perform transport layer protocol processing on packets of the transport layer flow; and
wherein the congestion detection circuitry is configured to set the congestion experienced indication on a packet to be transmitted from the network interface circuitry as a result of the transport layer protocol processing.
2. The network interface circuitry of claim 1 , wherein:
the packets being communicated between the host and the peer according to the transport layer flow are ingress packets of the transport layer flow from the network to the network interface circuitry; and
being configured to provide the indication of the detected congestion includes being configured to provide a congestion experienced indication to the host correlated to the ingress packets of the transport layer flow.
3. The network interface circuitry of claim 2 , wherein:
the transport layer flow is a connection that is operating according to a TCP/IP protocol; and
the indication providing circuitry is configured to provide the indication of the detected congestion correlated to the transport layer flow including providing ECN bits to a receiving stack of the host.
4. The network interface circuitry of claim 3 , wherein:
the host is configured to re-compute the IP header checksum.
5. The network interface circuitry of claim 3 , wherein:
the indication providing circuitry is configured to provide the indication of congestion alongside the packet as an out-of-band communication.
6. The network interface circuitry of claim 1 , wherein:
the packets being communicated between the host and the peer according to the transport layer flow are egress packets from the network interface circuitry to the network; and
being configured to provide the indication of the detected congestion includes being configured to provide a congestion experienced indication to the peer correlated to the egress packets.
7. The network interface circuitry of claim 6 , wherein:
the protocol processing circuitry is further configured to form the egress packets using transport layer protocol processing functionality of the protocol processing circuitry, and
the transport layer protocol processing functionality of the protocol processing circuitry is configured to provide the indication of the detected congestion based on operation of the transport layer protocol processing functionality in forming the egress packets.
8. The network interface circuitry of claim 2 , wherein:
being configured to provide a congestion experienced indication to the host correlated to the ingress packets includes being configured to provide the congestion experienced indication correlated to a transport layer flow to which the ingress packets belong.
9. The network interface circuitry of claim 8 , wherein:
being configured to provide a congestion experienced indication to the host correlated to the ingress packets includes being configured to provide with the congestion experienced indication at least one of information from headers of the ingress packets or a transport layer flow identification obtained by the network interface circuitry using a lookup.
10. The network interface circuitry of claim 1 , wherein:
the protocol processing circuitry is further configured to operate as a-link-layer switch, and
the congestion detection circuitry and indication providing circuitry are configured to operate in the process of the protocol processing circuitry operating as a link-layer switch.
11. The network interface circuitry of claim 1 , wherein:
the protocol processing circuitry is configured to provide a virtual local area network tunnel, and wherein the indication providing circuitry is configured to provide the congestion indication in an inner internet layer protocol header of packets being transported via the virtual local area network tunnel.
12. The network interface circuitry of claim 1 , further comprising:
traffic rate management circuitry, and
the indication providing circuitry is configured to provide the indication of detected congestion to the traffic rate management circuitry.