Technique for mitigating effects of slow or stuck virtual machines in fibre channel communications networks

摘要

A method is provided in one example embodiment and includes monitoring an egress port connected to a server to detect a traffic flow comprising a plurality of data packets and determining whether one of the packets is timeout dropped at the egress port. If at least one of the packets is timeout dropped at the egress port, the method further includes detecting a destination identifier (“DID”) of the timeout dropped packet and withdrawing a device identified by the detected DID from an FC zone to which it is assigned and reactivating the zone. The method further includes determining whether the traffic flow is experiencing high wait times at the egress port and, if the traffic flow is experiencing high wait times at the egress port, detecting the DID of the traffic flow and reducing a priority of the zone to which the detected DID is assigned and reactivating the zone.