Hybrid arrival-occupancy based congestion management

A method, comprising:

• receiving, by a computing device, a plurality of data flows, each of the plurality of data flows are received from a source and comprise a plurality of data packets;
• storing the data packets in a buffer comprising multiple storage units;
• maintaining a first and a second list of culprit data flows;
• determining if a buffer is congested;
• responsive to determining that the buffer is congested, generating a congestion notification message;
• sending the congestion notification message to the source of a data flow selected from the first list of culprit data flows on condition that the selected data flow is also included in the second list of culprit data flows;
• and
• discarding the congestion notification message if the selected data flow is not included in the second list of culprit data flows.

A system for hybrid arrival-occupancy based congestion management comprising:

• a buffer embodied in a computer readable storage medium comprising a plurality of buffer units for storing packets received from a plurality of sources;
• a buffer manager that stores information about the packets stored in the buffer;
• a recent arrivals counter that stores information about packets received from each of the plurality of sources;
• a congestion estimator that monitors a congestion level in the buffer;
• a occupancy sampler that randomly selects an occupied buffer unit from the plurality of buffer units;
• and
• a congestion notification message generator that generates a congestion notification message;
• wherein when the congestion level in the buffer exceeds a threshold value the congestion notification message is sent to a source of the packet stored in the occupied buffer unit if the recent arrivals counter has a positive value.

A method, comprising:

• receiving, by a computing device, a plurality of data flows from a plurality of sources, each of the plurality of data flows comprising a plurality of data packets;
• storing the data packets in a buffer comprising multiple storage units;
• maintaining a list of culprit data flows, wherein the list of culprit data flows includes data flows that have a positive a recent arrivals counter;
• determining if a buffer is congested;
• responsive to determining that the buffer is congested randomly selecting an occupied unit of the buffer and determining a source of the packet stored in the occupied unit of the buffer;
• generating a congestion notification message;
• sending the congestion notification message to the source of the packet stored in the occupied unit of the buffer if the data flow associated with the source is included in the list of culprit data flows;
• and
• discarding the congestion notification message if the data flow associated with the source is not included in the list of culprit data flows.