Real-Time In-Network Microburst Mitigation on Programmable Switch

Abstract

Microbursts in the datacenter network (DCN) last for an extremely short time in switches and are difficult to discover from a coarse-grained perspective. Most prior works are dedicated to in-network detection of microbursts and have not yet attempted to mitigate them in real time. Therefore, a realtime microburst mitigator, called RIMM, is proposed in this work and mainly applies orderly detours with flowlet intervals for preventing packet loss and packet retransmission in the network. RIMM mainly consists of three key components: (1) detour launcher, (2) packet sequencer, and (3) post-detour handler, and can entirely work in-network on a programmable switch. Experimental results demonstrate that RIMM is capable of preventing packet loss, allowing the reduction of packet retransmissions, while effectively reducing microbursts, resulting in an enhanced data-center network performance.