Priority flow control-sensitive: Reducing tail latency with Priority flow control-sensitive in lossless data center networks

Abstract

Lossless fabrics are widely used in many production data centers, but they can give rise to issues such as head-of-line blocking and congestion spreading during network congestion, which can significantly degrade the performance of data center applications. Additionally, the latency of end-to-end solutions can lead to the buildup of switch queues. To address these challenges, this paper proposes a method called Priority Flow Control-Sensitive (PFC-S). PFC-S monitors buffer occupancy and traffic intensity, performs proactive rerouting, and prevents the impact of PFC congestion diffusion on victim flows. This approach helps maintain low buffer usage levels, thereby enabling control over tail latency. Initial evaluations demonstrate that PFC-S can reduce the average flow completion time and effectively prevent congestion spreading. Moreover, experimental results show that PFC-S provides better protection for victim flows compared to standard PFC, BFC, and HPCC methods.