Patent ID: 7953094
Filing Date: 2011-05-31
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
1. A method for preserving the order of blocks of data in a plurality of data streams transmitted across a plurality of processing paths, the method comprising: receiving, by a device, the blocks of data on the plurality of data streams; attaching sequence numbers to the received blocks of data without reference to an output destination; distributing, by the device, the blocks of data to the plurality of processing paths; receiving, by the device, the blocks of data processed by the plurality of processing paths; storing, by the device, each of the processed blocks of data in a location of a memory; storing, by the device, pointers, to each of the locations of the memory that stores a processed block of data, in a plurality of pointer queues based on the sequence numbers attached to each of the processed blocks of data; associating, by the device, a time stamp with each of the processed blocks of data; queuing, by the device, the time stamp associated with each of the processed blocks of data in a first-in first-out (FIFO) queue; successively retrieving the queued time stamps from the FIFO queue; retrieving, by the device and for each of the retrieved time stamps (t retrieving, by the device, a block of data, from the memory, using each of the retrieved pointers; and transmitting, by the device, each of the retrieved blocks of data.