METHODS AND APPARATUS FOR IMPROVED POLLING EFFICIENCY IN NETWORK INTERFACE FABRICS

Methods and apparatus for improved polling efficiency in networks such as those with interface fabrics. In one exemplary embodiment, the methods and apparatus provide efficient alternatives to linear or other polling methods by allocating queues (whether statically or dynamically) to groups or sets of queues based on one or more attributes associated therewith. Higher priority queue sets or groups are polled according to a different scheme than those in other, lower priority groups, thereby providing significant economies relative to a process where all queues are checked by rote each polling increment. In another disclosed approach, a flag is associated with each queue (or subset of all queues) which indicates to a reading process that the queue has been written since its last poll. In one variant, the queue flags comprise a single byte, and the queues are "tiered" such that one flag can be used to represent multiple queues.