Patent ID: 6829649
Filing Date: 2004-12-07
Classification: H04L

Abstract:
A method of allocating bandwidth of a limited bandwidth link among dataflows comprising packets, said method comprising:adaptively adjusting a number of buckets dependent upon a number of active dataflows of said dataflows, wherein each bucket comprises a number of tokens allocated to said bucket for use by a corresponding dataflow of said active dataflows, said number of tokens dependent upon a weighted value of said corresponding dataflow, wherein queuing of said packets for utilization of said limited bandwidth link is dependent upon said number of tokens; and adaptively reallocating said tokens among said buckets in accordance with a weighted value of each of said dataflows, wherein each said bucket is operable for maintaining a record of past usage of an outgoing bandwidth link by each dataflow of said dataflows, wherein each said bucket comprises a height proportional to weights of respective said dataflows, wherein said height of each said bucket determines a maximum size of bursts of said dataflows that can be accommodated by said buckets, and wherein an allocation rate at which the number of tokens of a predetermined number of tokens of said dataflows are allocated to said buckets is proportional to said weights of respective said dataflows so that a cumulative rate of all the allocation rates equals a fixed transmission capacity of said bandwidth link.