Notification by network element of packet drops

The method of claim 2, further comprising:

• determining whether the source computer supports handling of a dropped packet notification message from a network element that is not a destination for a packet;
• and
• returning the dropped packet notification message to the source computer if it is determined the source computer supports the dropped packet message.

A method comprising:

• receiving a dropped packet notification message sent from a network element at a source computer containing indicia identifying a packet sent from the source computer and destined for a destination computer was dropped by the network element;
• and
• retransmitting the packet that was dropped from the source computer.

A non-transient tangible machine readable medium having instructions stored thereon comprising configured to be executed on a computing device, and, when executed, cause the computing device to perform operations comprising:

• receiving a dropped packet notification message sent from a network element containing indicia identifying a packet sent from the computing device and destined for a destination computer was dropped by the network element;
• and
• retransmitting the packet that was dropped toward the destination computer.