Patent ID: 8832332

Claim:
A packet processing apparatus comprising: an identifying unit that identifies a type of communication used for transmitting a received packet; a plurality of processing units that are provided in a manner corresponding respectively to types of communication and each identify a desired quality of the packet for which the identifying unit identifies the type of communication; a plurality of queues that are provided in a manner corresponding respectively to desired qualities of packets; and a plurality of queue processing units that are provided separately from the plurality of processing units in a manner corresponding respectively to the plurality of queues, and each perform a queue process using one of the plurality of queues corresponding to the desired quality of the packet identified by the corresponding processing unit, a receiving assignment unit that assigns, when the packet is received by the packet processing apparatus, the received packet to the processing unit corresponding to a receiving connection that transmits the packet to the packet processing apparatus; and a sending assignment unit that assigns, when the packet is to be sent from the packet processing apparatus, the packet to the processing unit corresponding to a sending connection that transmits the packet from the packet processing apparatus, wherein the processing unit notifies the desired quality of the packet identified for the processing unit to the queue processing unit corresponding to the desired quality of the packet identified for the processing unit, and each of the queues corresponds to one of the queue processing units.