Abstract: A network device includes multiple ports, a Shared Buffer (SB) and a SB controller. The ports to connect to a communication network. The SB to temporarily store packets received from the communication network via the ports, the packets belonging to multiple flows. The SB controller to allocate one or more flow-specific storage regions in the SB, a given flow-specific storage region being allocated to store the packets that (i) belong to respective one or more of the flows and (ii) are to be transmitted via a respective egress queue. In response to detecting that an occupancy level in the given flow-specific storage region exceeds a specified occupancy threshold, the SB controller to report the flows in the given flow-specific storage region as congested.

Abstract: A networking device and system are described, among other things. An illustrative system is disclosed to include a shared buffer and at least a flow controller. In some embodiments, the system and/or flow controller may be configured to measure a packet flow's bandwidth consumption of the shared buffer, assign a flow-type attribute to the packet flow based on the packet flow's bandwidth consumption of the shared buffer, select a shared buffer schema for the packet flow based on the flow-type attribute assigned to the packet flow, and apply the selected shared buffer schema to the packet flow. For example, the flow-type attribute assigned to the packet flow may comprise a mice flow state or an elephant flow state, and a reserve attribute may be assigned to the flow based on the packet flow being assigned the mice flow state or the elephant flow state.

Abstract: Methods, systems, and computer program products to modulate telemetry data as a function to represent the performance of a network and/or individual devices connected to the network. In embodiments, the method includes receiving telemetry data that has been sampled at a given point of time, wherein the telemetry data is associated with a performance metric of a device; processing the telemetry data as a function representing performance of the network device, wherein processing the telemetry data comprises modulating the telemetry data at the given point of time to previously sampled telemetry data based on the function; and demodulating the modulated telemetry data. In embodiments, the method also includes transferring the modulated telemetry data for reporting.

Abstract: A network device includes one or more ports, a packet processor, and a memory management circuit. The one or more ports are to communicate packets over a network. The packet processor is to process the packets using a plurality of queues. The memory management circuit is to maintain a shared buffer in a memory and adaptively allocate memory resources from the shared buffer to the queues, to maintain in the memory, in addition to the shared buffer, a shared-reserve memory pool for use by a defined subset of the queues, to identify in the subset a queue that (i) requires additional memory resources, (ii) is not eligible for additional allocation from the shared buffer, and (iii) meets an eligibility condition for the shared-reserve memory pool, and to allocate memory resources to the identified queue from the shared-reserve memory pool.

Abstract: A network device includes a memory and a memory management circuit. The memory is to store a shared buffer. The memory management circuit is to estimate respective bandwidth measures for one or more queues used in processing packets in the network device, and to allocate and deallocate segments of the shared buffer to at least one of the queues based on the bandwidth measures.

Abstract: A network-connected device includes at least one communication port, packet processing circuitry and Diagnostics Direct Memory Access (DMA) Circuitry (DDC). The at least one communication port is configured to communicate packets over a network. The packet processing circuitry is configured to receive, buffer, process and transmit the packets. The DDC is configured to receive a definition of (i) one or more diagnostic events, and (ii) for each diagnostic event, a corresponding list of diagnostic data that is generated in the packet processing circuitry and that pertains to the diagnostic event, and, responsively to occurrence of a diagnostic event, to gather the corresponding list of diagnostic data from the packet processing circuitry.

Abstract: A network device includes multiple ports, packet processing circuitry, a memory and a reserved-memory management circuit (RMMC). The ports are to communicate packets over a network. The packet processing circuitry is to process the packets using a plurality of queues. The memory is to store a shared buffer. The RMMC is to allocate segments of the shared buffer to the queues, including allocating reserve segments of the shared buffer to selected queues that meet a reserve-allocation criterion.

Abstract: A network element includes circuitry and multiple ports. The multiple ports are configured to connect to a communication network. The circuitry is configured to receive via one of the ports a packet that originated from a source node and is destined to a destination node, the packet including a mark that is indicative of a cumulative state derived from at least bandwidth utilization conditions of output ports that were traversed by the packet along a path, from the source node up to the network element, to select a port for forwarding the packet toward the destination node, to update the mark of the packet based at least on a value of the mark in the received packet and on a local bandwidth utilization condition of the selected port, and to transmit the packet having the updated mark to the destination node via the selected port.

Abstract: An apparatus for controlling a Shared Buffer (SB), the apparatus including an interface and a SB controller. The interface is to access flow-based data counts and admission states. The SB controller is to perform flow-based accounting of packets received by a network device coupled to a communication network, for producing flow-based data counts, each flow-based data count associated with one or more respective flows, and to generate admission states based at least on the flow-based data counts, each admission state being generated from one or more respective flow-based data counts.

Abstract: A network device includes multiple ports, multiple buffer slices, a controller, and buffer control circuitry. The multiple ports are configured to communicate packets over a network. The multiple buffer slices are linked respectively to the multiple ports. The controller is configured to allocate a group of two or more of the buffer slices to a selected port among the ports. The buffer control circuitry is configured to buffer the packets, communicated via the selected port, in the group of the buffer slices, using zero-copy buffering.

Abstract: Apparatus for global policing of a bandwidth of a flow, the apparatus including a network device including a local policer configured to perform bandwidth policing on the flow within the network device, and a communications module configured to: send local policer state information from the local policer to a remote global policer, and receive policer state information from the remote global policer and update the local policer state information based on the remote global policer state information, Related apparatus and methods are also provided.

Abstract: Apparatus for global policing of a bandwidth of a flow, the apparatus including a network device including a local policer configured to perform bandwidth policing on the flow within the network device, and a communications module configured to: send local policer state information from the local policer to a remote global policer, and receive policer state information from the remote global policer and update the local policer state information based on the remote global policer state information. Related apparatus and methods are also provided.

Abstract: A network element includes multiple ports configured to communicate over a network, a buffer memory, a snapshot memory, and circuitry. The circuitry is configured to forward packets between the ports, to temporarily store information associated with the packets in the buffer memory, to continuously write at least part of the information to the snapshot memory concurrently with storage of the information in the buffer memory, and, in response to at least one predefined diagnostic event, to stop writing of the information to the snapshot memory, so as to create in the snapshot memory a coherent snapshot corresponding to a time of the diagnostic event.

Abstract: A parsing apparatus includes an interface, a first parser, a second parser and a controller. The interface is configured to receive packets belonging to a plurality of predefined packet types. The first parser is configured to identify any of the packet types. The second parser is configured to identify only a partial subset of the packet types. The controller is configured to receive a packet via the interface, to attempt identifying a packet type of the received packet using the second parser, and in response to detecting that identifying the packet type using the second parser fails, to revert to identify the packet type of the received packet using the first parser.

Abstract: A network device includes multiple ports, multiple buffer slices, a controller, and buffer control circuitry. The multiple ports are configured to communicate packets over a network. The multiple buffer slices are linked respectively to the multiple ports. The controller is configured to allocate a group of two or more of the buffer slices to a selected port among the ports. The buffer control circuitry is configured to buffer the packets, communicated via the selected port, in the group of the buffer slices, using zero-copy buffering.

Abstract: A parsing apparatus includes an interface, a first parser, a second parser and a controller. The interface is configured to receive packets belonging to a plurality of predefined packet types. The first parser is configured to identify any of the packet types. The second parser is configured to identify only a partial subset of the packet types. The controller is configured to receive a packet via the interface, to attempt identifying a packet type of the received packet using the second parser, and in response to detecting that identifying the packet type using the second parser fails, to revert to identify the packet type of the received packet using the first parser.

Abstract: A network-connected device includes at least one communication port, packet processing circuitry and Diagnostics Direct Memory Access (DMA) Circuitry (DDC). The at least one communication port is configured to communicate packets over a network. The packet processing circuitry is configured to receive, buffer, process and transmit the packets. The DDC is configured to receive a definition of (i) one or more diagnostic events, and (ii) for each diagnostic event, a corresponding list of diagnostic data that is generated in the packet processing circuitry and that pertains to the diagnostic event, and, responsively to occurrence of a diagnostic event, to gather the corresponding list of diagnostic data from the packet processing circuitry.

Abstract: An apparatus for controlling a Shared Buffer (SB), the apparatus including an interface and a SB controller. The interface is configured to access flow-based data counts and admission states. The SB controller is configured to perform flow-based accounting of packets received by a network device coupled to a communication network, for producing flow-based data counts, each flow-based data count associated with one or more respective flows, and to generate admission states based at least on the flow-based data counts, each admission state being generated from one or more respective flow-based data counts.

Abstract: In one embodiment, a network device includes multiple ports to be connected to a packet data network so as to serve as both ingress and egress ports in receiving and forwarding of data packets including unicast and multicast data packets, a memory coupled to the ports and to contain a combined unicast-multicast user-pool storing the received unicast and multicast data packets, and packet processing logic to compute a combined unicast-multicast user-pool free-space based on counting only once at least some of the multicast packets stored once in the combined unicast-multicast user-pool, compute an occupancy of an egress queue by counting a space used by the data packets of the egress queue in the combined unicast-multicast user-pool, apply an admission policy to a received data packet for entry into the egress queue based on at least the computed occupancy of the egress queue and the computed combined unicast-multicast user-pool free-space.

Abstract: A network element includes circuitry and multiple ports. The multiple ports are configured to connect to a communication network. The circuitry is configured to receive via one of the ports a packet that originated from a source node and is destined to a destination node, the packet including a mark that is indicative of a cumulative state derived from at least bandwidth utilization conditions of output ports that were traversed by the packet along a path, from the source node up to the network element, to select a port for forwarding the packet toward the destination node, to update the mark of the packet based at least on a value of the mark in the received packet and on a local bandwidth utilization condition of the selected port, and to transmit the packet having the updated mark to the destination node via the selected port.