Predictive congestion detection

A switching component, comprising:

• a first input and a second input;
• an output;
• a routing engine associated with the first input and configured to make routing decisions for the first input, and configured to receive congestion information messages from the output;
• the routing engine configured to predict a change in a congestion state of the output in between reception of each congestion information message, predicting a change in the congestion state comprising:
• receiving a congestion information message from the output;
• initializing a first congestion value based on the received congestion information message from the output;
• and
• predicting a change in a congestion state of the output based on the first congestion value and usage information for the output known to the routing engine.

A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium storing instructions which, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to:

• receive, by a routing engine associated with a first input of a router, congestion information from an output;
• initialize, by the routing engine, a first congestion value based on the received congestion information from the output and associated with the first input of the router;
• until a second congestion state value is determined from a second input of the router, continuously predict, by the routing engine, a change in a congestion state of the output based on the first congestion value and usage information for the output known to the routing engine;
• in response to predicting no change in the congestion state:
• update, by the routing engine, the usage information for the output, the updated usage information indicating that the usage information is known to the routing engine since a previous prediction occurred;
• and
• predict, by the routing engine, a change in the congestion state of the output based on the first congestion value and the updated usage information for the output;
• and
• in response to predicting a change in the congestion state:
• altering, by the routing engine, the first congestion value to generate an altered congestion value;
• updating, by the routing engine, the usage information for the output, the updated usage information indicating that the usage information is known to the routing engine since a previous prediction occurred;
• and
• predicting, by the routing engine, a change in the congestion state of the output based on the altered congestion value and the updated usage information.