Patent ID: 7508758

Claim:
An apparatus, comprising: a plurality of first buffer stages configured to receive, buffer, and transfer information; a second buffer stage configured to accept, buffer, and transmit the transferred information to another network element; and a plurality of controllers, each of said controllers associated with one of the first buffer stages, wherein each of said controllers is configured to: cooperate with said associated one of said first buffer stages to detect a filling state of said associated one of said first buffer stages, cooperate with the second buffer stage or another of said controllers to detect a filling amount of the second buffer stage, cooperate with others of said controllers to receive data regarding a filling state of each of others of said first buffer stages, and generate control data, wherein each of the first buffer stages is configured to receive the control data from the associated one of said controllers, said control data being configured to control the transferring of the information from each of the first buffer stages to the second buffer stage so as to avoid an overload of the second buffer stage and to minimize an overload of any of the first buffer stages.