Asymmetric Flow Control

Note

Asymmetric Flow Control can only be configured globally for all ports on XGS4 silicon-based switches.

Note

Asymmetric Flow Control is not supported on Fast Ethernet platforms.

Note

If Asymmetric Flow Control is not supported on the platform, then only symmetric, or no flow control, modes are configurable.

When in asymmetric flow control mode, the switch responds to PAUSE frames received from a peer by stopping packet transmission, but the switch does not initiate MAC control PAUSE frames.

When you configure the switch in asymmetric flow control (or no flow control mode), the device is placed in egress drop mode. Egress drop mode maximizes the throughput of the system at the expense of packet loss in a heavily congested system, and this mode avoids head-of-line blocking.