Traffic flow management within a distributed system

Abstract

Various methods and systems are provided for traffic flow management within distributed traffic. In one example, among others, a distributed system includes egress ports supported by nodes of the distributed system, cut-through tokens (c-tokens) including an indication of eligibility of the corresponding egress port to handle cut-through traffic, and a cut-through control ring to pass the c-tokens between the nodes. In another example, a method includes determining whether an egress port is available to handle cut-through traffic based upon a corresponding c-token, claiming the egress port for transmission of at least a portion of a packet, and routing it to the claimed egress port for transmission. In another example, a distributed system includes a first node configured to modify an eligibility indication of a c-token before transmission to a second node configured to route at least a portion of a packet based at least in part upon the eligibility indication.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.