Patent ID: 9531640
Filing Date: 2016-12-27
CPC Classification: H04L

Claim Text:
1. A system comprising: one or more first network interfaces coupled to a first network with which a fixed total amount of bandwidth is available to transfer data; one or more second network interfaces coupled to a second network; a plurality of queues, each of the plurality of the queues corresponding to a respective one of a plurality of bandwidth zones, the plurality of the bandwidth zones including a plurality of first level guaranteed bandwidth zones and only one first level remaining bandwidth zone not entitled to any guaranteed bandwidth; and one or more processors operable to: determine a belonging bandwidth zone to which network traffic received from either of the first or the second network interfaces belongs; enqueue the network traffic received from either of the first or the second network interfaces on a queue corresponding to the belonging bandwidth zone; and cycle though the plurality of the queues, dequeue the network traffic from the plurality of the queues, and thereafter pass the network traffic dequeued from the plurality of the queues to one of the first or the second network interfaces for transmission to a destination network address; wherein, when dequeing the network traffic from a particular queue, the one or more processors are operable to automatically determine an amount of the network traffic to dequeue from the particular queue according to a bandwidth limit for the particular queue; the bandwidth limit for each of the plurality of the queues corresponding to the plurality of the first level guaranteed bandwidth zones includes a guaranteed bandwidth rate; and the bandwidth limit for the first level remaining bandwidth zone has no guaranteed bandwidth rate but includes a bandwidth cap equal to the fixed total amount of bandwidth of the one or more first network interfaces minus the guaranteed bandwidth rate for each of the plurality of the first level guaranteed bandwidth zones.