Abstract: The present disclosure provides methods and apparatus for improved congestion signaling. According to an aspect, a method is provided. The method includes receiving, by a switch, at a first ingress port, a first packet originated at a source. The method may further include sending, by the switch via a first egress port, the first packet toward a destination. The method may further include receiving, by the switch, at a second ingress port, a second packet destined for the source. The method may further include marking, by the switch, the second packet based on congestion information of the first egress port. The method may further include sending, by the switch via a second egress port, the second packet toward the source.

Abstract: In cloud computing, for various reasons such as load-balancing, hotspot elimination, server consolidation, energy and cost savings, and system maintenance, there is a need to migrate a virtual sub-network of virtual entities from a source network of servers to a destination set of servers. Existing migration methods are limited to the migration of VM memory and controller states, where network entities are migrated individually. Embodiments of this disclosure include systems and methods for the stateful live migration of a multi-layer network, while maintaining live state convergence and consistency, and preventing network connection losses, packet disordering and packet drops.

Abstract: There is provided a method and apparatus to generate temporal congestion signals. The method is used by a device and includes receiving a packet which includes a request for network state information and generating one or more temporal congestion signals. The method also including adding the temporal congestion signals to the packet and transmitting the packet including the temporal congestion signals. The temporal congestion signals can include one or more of a line busyness signal, which measures the duration of a busy period of the device, and a line idleness signal, which measures the duration of an idle period of the device.

Abstract: A method and a network device are provided for transferring data packets to a port according to the priority of the packets and, when a packet is dropped, providing, to the sender of the packets, an early notification that the packet was dropped. The priority of a packet can be determined according to data contained in the packet, e.g., an operation code of the packet, or according to a marking of the packet by the sender, e.g., a marking resulting from a weighted random early detection template. The early notification that the packet was dropped is in the form of message generated at the network device and sent by the network device to the sender of the packet. The network device obtains, form the packet to be dropped or from a connection table, the information required for the message to arrive at the sender.

Abstract: There is provided methods and devices for network management. A method includes receiving at least one data flow, transmitting in-band management packet periodically for each of the at least one data flow, receiving in-band acknowledgement packets for each of the at least one data flow, and producing network management data based on received in-band acknowledgement packets. A device includes a processor, and a non-transient computer readable memory having stored thereon machine executable instructions which when executed by the processor configure the device to execute the methods disclosed herein. A system includes a source node, a receiver and a data-plane device, the system configured to execute the methods disclosed herein.

Abstract: There is provided a method and apparatus to generate temporal congestion signals. The method is used by a device and includes receiving a packet which includes a request for network state information and generating one or more temporal congestion signals. The method also including adding the temporal congestion signals to the packet and transmitting the packet including the temporal congestion signals. The temporal congestion signals can include one or more of a line busyness signal, which measures the duration of a busy period of the device, and a line idleness signal, which measures the duration of an idle period of the device.

Abstract: There is provided a method and apparatus to provide notification of change events for microburst mitigation. The method is used by a sending device and includes tracking changes in scheduled data to be sent in a traffic flow and identifying a positive change in an amount of scheduled data to be sent in the traffic flow. The sending device then marks one or more packets to be sent in the traffic flow with a notification field, and then transmits the one or more packets including the notification field. The notification field can then be used by a recipient device, for example a network element, to identify and mitigate microbursts in a proactive manner.

Abstract: The present disclosure describes methods and systems for proactively managing a distributed computer network based on learned relationships between state changes and network events. During an initial identification phase, information representing state changes occurring at host nodes, and network events occurring at network nodes, is collected and processed to generate a database of event probability signatures, each event probability signature indicating a respective probability that a specified event type will occur at a specified network node given a specified type of state change at one of the hosts. During a subsequent action phase, a smart network engine can interact with software drivers installed on each host node to actively monitor for state changes, and when a state change is detected, compare the type of state change with the types of state changes specified in the plurality of event probability signatures to select a matching event probability signature.

Abstract: There is provided methods and devices for network management. A method includes receiving at least one data flow, transmitting in-band management packet periodically for each of the at least one data flow, receiving in-band acknowledgement packets for each of the at least one data flow, and producing network management data based on received in-band acknowledgement packets. A device includes a processor, and a non-transient computer readable memory having stored thereon machine executable instructions which when executed by the processor configure the device to execute the methods disclosed herein. A system includes a source node, a receiver and a data-plane device, the system configured to execute the methods disclosed herein.