Rdma-over-ethernet storage system with congestion avoidance without ethernet flow control

A method for data storage management, comprising:

• receiving a configuration of a communication network that connects one or more servers and one or more storage devices, including receiving (i) a definition of multiple network connections that are used by the servers to access the storage devices using a remote direct memory access protocol transported over a lossy layer-2 protocol and (ii) bandwidths of physical links of the communication network;
• based on the definition of the network connections and on the bandwidths of the physical links, calculating maximum bandwidths for allocation to the respective network connections;
• and
• reducing a likelihood of congestion in the communication network, notwithstanding the lossy layer-2 protocol, by notifying the servers and the storage devices of the maximum bandwidths allocated to the network connections, and instructing the servers and the storage devices to throttle traffic of the remote direct memory access protocol, so as not to exceed the maximum bandwidths.

A computer software product, the product comprising a tangible non-transitory computer-readable medium in which program instructions are stored, which instructions, when read by one or more processors in a communication network that connects one or more servers and one or more storage devices, cause the processors to:

• receive a configuration of the communication network, including (i) a definition of multiple network connections that are used by the servers to access the storage devices using a remote direct memory access protocol transported over a lossy layer-2 protocol and (ii) bandwidths of physical links of the communication network;
• based on the definition of the network connections and on the bandwidths of the physical links, calculate maximum bandwidths for allocation to the respective network connections;
• and
• reduce a likelihood of congestion in the communication network, notwithstanding the lossy layer-2 protocol, by notifying the servers and the storage devices of the maximum bandwidths allocated to the network connections, and instructing the servers and the storage devices to throttle traffic of the remote direct memory access protocol, so as not to exceed the maximum bandwidths.