Patent ID: 6980555
Filing Date: 2005-12-27
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method comprising: receiving a new policy tree at a network element in a network, wherein the network comparing the classes of the current policy tree with the classes of the new policy tree, including: selectively deleting classes of the current policy tree based on the comparison of the classes, verifying each class of the new tree policy with respect to remaining classes of the new policy tree to avoid conflicts when the new policy is merged into a merged policy tree; associating the merged policy tree with a termination point to activate the merged policy tree on the termination point; and processing data packets using a packet processing pipeline according to the merged policy tree, the packet processing pipeline including wherein each class includes a class name, a type of service, and an amount of bandwidth associated with the respective class, wherein the leaf classes do not have a child class and are orthogonal to a remainder of the leaf classes, and wherein each non-leaf class as a parent class includes at least one leaf class as a child class and each leaf class includes a set of rules that are constrained by a parent class associated with the respective leaf class, wherein a class having a parent class further includes all classification rules wherein each of the classes having at least two children classes is identified as a wherein the network element includes an Ethernet interface card (EIC) coupled to wherein the network element further comprises a controller card, wherein the controller card is to perform the following operations compiling each policy tree and generate a class lookup table (CLT) accessible by a CI of the EIC, wherein associating the policy tree with a termination point comprises creating tables required by the CI and IPM, wherein each class comprises one or more classification rules, QoS requirements, and a classification mask to specify which dimensions are specified in terms of the one or more classification rules, where the classification mask comprises