Patent ID: 7860009
Filing Date: 2010-12-28
Classification: H04L,Y02D

Abstract:
1. An apparatus for providing backpressure flow control to traffic flows of a data communications system, comprising: a packet processing module for performing packet processing operations on data packets of the traffic flows; a backpressure module for determining a level of congestion of the packet processing module based upon at least two different thresholds; a flow mapping engine for determining, in dependence upon the level of congestion, which of the traffic flows require a measure of flow control; and a traffic management module for receiving processed data packets from the packet processing module and for applying the measure of flow control to one or more of the traffic flows as required, wherein the traffic management module comprises a respective virtual output queue for each of the traffic flows and applies the measure of flow control to a given traffic flow by altering a rate at which data packets are emitted from a virtual output queue corresponding to the given traffic flow.