System and method of a pause watchdog

1. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause one or more processing units to perform a method to trigger a pause reduction component, the method comprising:

receiving a pause message on a first network element, wherein the pause message is from a second network element and indicates that data should not be transmitted by the first network element; and

in response to receiving the pause message, triggering the pause reduction component on the first network element when a characteristic of the first network element is above a pause reduction threshold, wherein the pause reduction component reduces an effect of the pause message and the pause reduction threshold is based on at least one of a particular number of pause messages, an inadequate drain rate of a queue associated with the second network element, or a queue occupancy of the queue associated with the second network element.

2. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the pause reduction component reduces the effect of the pause message by causing the first network element to suppress the pause message such that the first network element continues to transmit data to the second network element.

3. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the pause reduction component suppresses an outbound pause message to another network element.

4. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the pause reduction component error disables a port coupling the second network element to the first network element.

5. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the pause reduction component performs a drop on data being added to a queue associated with a port that couples the second network element to the first network element.

6. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the pause reduction component performs a drop on data in a particular traffic class being added to a queue associated with a port that couples the second network element to the first network element.

7. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 6 , wherein the data in the particular traffic class is data destined for a device that is coupled to the second network element.

8. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , wherein the pause message is an 802.3x pause message.

9. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising:

removing the pause reduction component.

10. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 9 , wherein the removing the pause reduction component occurs if the first network element detects an action selected from the group consisting of the first network element not having received a further pause message after a first period of time, a second period of time has passed since an error disable of a port coupling the second network element has occurred, a queue associated with a port receiving the pause message is at or below a queue occupancy threshold, and the queue has a sufficient drain rate.

11. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising: ignoring a pause message received by the first network element.

12. The machine-readable medium of claim 1 , further comprising:

detecting that a characteristic of the first network element is above a pause reduction component removal threshold; and

removing a pause reduction component on the first network element.

13. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause one or more processing units to perform a method to trigger a pause reduction component, the method comprising:

measuring a drain rate of a queue on a first network element;

detecting that the drain rate is inadequate relative to a pause reduction threshold; and

in response to the detecting, triggering the pause reduction component on the first network element, wherein the pause reduction component reduces an effect of a received pause message.

14. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the pause reduction component suppresses an outbound pause message to another network element.

15. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the pause reduction component error disables a port coupling a second network element to the first network element.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the pause reduction component performs a drop on data being added to a queue associated with a port that couples a second network element to the first network element.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 13 , wherein the pause reduction component performs a drop on data in a particular traffic class being added to a queue associated with a port that couples a second network element to the first network element.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 17 , wherein the data in the particular traffic class is data destined for a device that is coupled to the second network element.

19. The machine-readable medium of claim 13 , further comprising: detecting that a characteristic of the first network element is above a pause reduction component removal threshold; and

removing a pause reduction component on the first network element.

20. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having executable instructions to cause one or more processing units to perform a method to remove a pause reduction component, the method comprising:

triggering the pause reduction component on a first network element, wherein the pause reduction component reduces an effect of a received pause message;

detecting that a characteristic of the first network element is above a pause reduction component removal threshold, wherein the pause reduction component reduction threshold is based on at least one of not receiving a pause message with a certain period of time, amount time passed since a port of the network element was error disabled, a queue associated with a port receiving a pause message has an acceptably low queue occupancy rate, or a sufficient drain of a queue; and

in response to the detecting, removing a pause reduction component on the first network element.

21. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 20 , wherein the pause reduction component suppresses an outbound pause message to another network element.

22. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 20 , wherein the pause reduction component error disables a port coupling a second network element to the first network element.

23. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 20 , wherein the pause reduction component performs a drop on data being added to a queue associated with a port that couples a second network element to the first network element.

24. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 20 , wherein the pause reduction component performs a drop on data in a particular traffic class being added to a queue associated with a port that couples a second network element to the first network element.

25. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 24 , wherein the data in the particular traffic class is data destined for a device that is coupled to the second network element.

26. A method to trigger a pause reduction component, the method comprising:

receiving a pause message on a first network element, wherein the pause message is from a second network element and indicates that data should not be transmitted by the first network element; and

in response to receiving the pause message, triggering a pause reduction component on the first network element when a characteristic of the first network element is above a pause reduction threshold, wherein the pause reduction component reduces an effect of the pause message and the pause reduction threshold is selected from the group consisting of a particular number of pause messages, an inadequate drain rate of a queue associated with the second network element, and a queue occupancy of the queue associated with the second network element.