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MVTX2601
Data Sheet
26
Zarlink Semiconductor Inc.
Figure 9 - Buffer Partition Scheme Used to Implement MVTX2601 Buffer Management
7.7.1 Dropping When Buffers Are Scarce
Summarizing the two examples of local dropping discussed earlier in this chapter:
If a queue is a delay-bounded queue, we have a multi level WRED drop scheme, designed to control delay
and partition bandwidth in case of congestion
If a queue is a WFQ-scheduled queue, we have a multi level WRED drop scheme, designed to prevent
congestion
In addition to these reasons for dropping, we also drop frames when global buffer space becomes scarce. The
function of buffer management is to make sure that such dropping causes as little blocking as possible.
7.8 MVTX2601 Flow Control Basics
Because frame loss is unacceptable for some applications, the MVTX2601 provides a flow control option. When
flow control is enabled, scarcity of buffer space in the switch may trigger a flow control signal; this signal tells a
source port that is sending a packet to this switch to temporarily hold off.
While flow control offers the clear benefit of no packet loss, it also introduces a problem for quality of service. When
a source port receives an Ethernet flow control signal, all microflows originating at that port, well-behaved or not are
halted. A single packet destined for a congested output can block other packets destined for uncongested outputs.
The resulting head-of-line blocking phenomenon means that quality of service cannot be assured with high
confidence when flow control is enabled.
In the MVTX2601, each source port can independently have flow control enabled or disabled. For flow control
enabled ports, by default all frames are treated as lowest priority during transmission scheduling. This is done so
that those frames are not exposed to the WRED Dropping scheme. Frames from flow control enabled ports feed to
only one queue at the destination, the queue of lowest priority. What this means is that if flow control is enabled for
a given source port, then we can guarantee that no packets originating from that port will be lost, but at the possible
shared pool
S
per-source
reservations
(24 10/100 M, CPU)
temporary
reservation
per-class
reservation