Programmable congestion control engine

A method, comprising:

• receiving an instruction to register a new congestion control (CC) algorithm in a computing system;
• selecting first measurements to be captured for the new CC algorithm by measurement circuitry when monitoring ingress and egress packets,
• wherein the measurement circuitry is configured to capture a plurality of measurements, the first measurements are a subset of the plurality of measurements;
• configuring CC data processing circuitry to process the first measurements according to the new CC algorithm,
• wherein the CC data processing circuitry is capable of being programmed to perform tasks corresponding to a plurality of different CC algorithms;
• enabling enforcement circuitry to control egress packets leaving the computing system according to the new CC algorithm;
• performing tasks corresponding to the new CC algorithm in the CC data processing circuitry to process the first measurements and generate processed data;
• forwarding the processed data to a CC software application;
• and
• generating, using the CC software application, control parameters for the enforcement circuitry based on the processed data,
• wherein the control parameters control a manner the egress packets are transmitted by the enforcement circuitry.

An integrated circuit, comprising:

• congestion control (CC) data processing circuitry designed to perform tasks corresponding to a plurality of CC algorithms using sub-units, each of the sub-units corresponding to a different CC algorithm, wherein:
• in response to first instructions from a CC software application, the CC data processing circuitry is configured to select one of the plurality of CC algorithms, and activate a first one of the sub-units corresponding to the selected CC algorithm;
• the CC data processing circuitry is programed to perform tasks corresponding to the selected CC algorithm using the first sub-unit,
• wherein a second one of the sub-units corresponding to a unselected one of the plurality of CC algorithms remains deactivated when performing the tasks corresponding to the selected CC algorithm;
• and
• in response to determining that the selected CC algorithm is no longer needed, the CC data processing circuitry is configured to deactivate the first sub-unit corresponding to the selected CC algorithm in hardware via provided application programmable interfaces (APIs);
• measurement circuitry configured to monitor ingress and egress packets to capture performance measurements corresponding to the plurality of CC algorithms,
• wherein, in response to second instructions from the CC software application, the measurement circuitry is configured to capture a subset of the performance measurements corresponding to the selected CC algorithm;
• and
• enforcement circuitry configured to control a manner egress packets are transmitted from a computing system.