Patent ID: 8027346

Claim:
A method for scheduling data for dequeuing in a communication network having a hierarchy of interacting scheduling nodes including a child scheduling node and parent scheduling node, the child scheduling node being an eligible scheduling node, the eligible scheduling node having a scheduling context structure, an existence of data structure, and a data queue associated therewith, the method comprising: responsive to determining that the eligible scheduling node does not contain at least one child identifier in the scheduling context structure and that an eligible child exists in the existence of data structure: forwarding a message from the eligible scheduling node to the parent scheduling node, the message indicating the existence of an eligible child in the existence of data structure; and and after forwarding the message, absorbing at least one eligible child from the existence of data structure into the scheduling context structure, absorbing the at least one eligible child including: removing the child identifier from the existence of data structure; and adding the child identifier to the scheduling context structure.