Back to results
US 8,619,584 B2Granted
Load balancing over DCE multipath ECMP links for HPC and FCoE
AssigneeCisco Technology, Inc.
InventorsSandeep Dhar, Dinesh G. Dutt, Sanjay Sane, Adam Hutchin
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Methods and apparatus for generating different hash values in an effort to achieve better load balancing among various paths in a data center environment, such as Data Center Ethernet (DCE) with Layer 2 Multipathing (L2MP), supporting equal-cost multipath (ECMP) routing are provided. In this manner, the data center environment may attain better network utilization for high-performance computing (HPC), storage area network (SAN), and/or local area network (LAN) traffic.
Claims19
A method comprising:
- generating two or more different hash values for forwarding data from a first network device to a second network device along two or more paths having equal routing cost and supporting data center bridging;
- forwarding a first packet along a first path based on a first generated hash value;
- and
- forwarding a second packet along a second path based on a second generated hash value,
- wherein generating the two or more different hash values comprises:
- performing an operation on a hash value constant for a given flow using a first unique bridge identifier (ID) of a first network bridge in the first path to generate the first hash value;
- and
- performing the operation on the hash value constant for a given flow using a second unique bridge ID of a second network bridge in the second path to generate the second hash value.
5 more elements
An apparatus comprising:
- logic configured to generate two or more different hash values for forwarding data from the apparatus to a network device along two or more paths having equal routing cost and supporting data center bridging, to forward a first packet along a first path based on a first hash value, and to forward a second packet along a second path based on a second hash value, wherein the logic is configured to generate the hash values by:
- performing an operation on a hash value constant for a given flow using a first unique bridge identifier (ID) of a first network bridge in the first path to generate the first hash value;
- and
- performing the operation on the hash value constant for a given flow using a second unique bridge ID of a second network bridge in the second path to generate the second hash value.
1 more element
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.