A network communication pause system includes a network interface device and a management controller. The management controller is operable to monitor first data traffic that is received by the network interface device over a network and that is associated with a sender Media Access Control (MAC) address and a receiver MAC address. If the management controller determines that the first data traffic has exceeded a threshold, a pause frame that includes the sender MAC address is sent over the network through the network interface device to a sender device associated with the sender MAC address. The pause frame may include an operations code that causes intermediate devices coupled between the management controller and the sender device to forward the pause frame to the sender device, and a pause time for which the sender device will pause the sending of data traffic to the receiver MAC address.