A dynamic threshold calculation for congestion notification in IEEE 802.1Qbb

Ethernet has been a backbone of data centers since inception of cloud computing. The reason is its simplicity, cost effectiveness, wide existing base, and maturity. However, Ethernet is unreliable when it comes to providing guaranteed transmission. Consequently, IEEE 802.1Qbb standard has been introduced to provide reliability based on congestion notification (CN) mechanism of IEEE 802.3x. However, IEEE 802.1Qbb has some issues and limitations, such as higher buffer space reservation, lack of support for heterogeneous switching devices, and low throughput and efficiency of the network. This letter proposes a novel approach for modified CN mechanism that provides 44 percent less space reservation for CN mechanism, support for heterogeneity, higher throughput, and efficiency.