Minimising the effects of congestion in dynamically routed multipath networks

摘要

The present invention relates to a method of sorting and routing data packets in a multi-path network 10 having a plurality of ports; a plurality of network links (17, fig.4); and a plurality of network elements 18 as Bridge Fabric Switches (BFS's), each network element having at least first and second separately addressable buffers in communication with a network link and the network links interconnecting the network elements via Bridge Fabric Switch Links (BFSL's) and connecting the network elements to the ports, the method comprising: assigning to each data packet a destination address corresponding to at least part of the address of the egress port(s) of the network required by the data packet; and sorting data packets with respect to their egress port(s) and destination address such that at a network element a first set of data packets intended for the same egress port and having the same destination address are queued in said first buffer and at least one other data packet intended for an egress port other than the egress port of the first set of data packets is queued separately in said second buffer whereby said at least one other data packet is separated from any congestion associated with the first set of data packets. The invention further relates to a method of data delivery in a multi-path network using the aforementioned method of sorting of data packets and to a multi-path network operable to sort data packets and operable to deliver data in a multi-path network.