Patent ID: 7304952

Claim:
A method of performing flow control in a network, comprising: provisioning a user-specified flow control message at a first node; provisioning a user-specified flow control pause message filter and a user-specified flow control resume message filter at a second node coupled to the first node; at the first node, monitoring availability of a buffer temporarily storing user data received from the second node, and in response to a predetermined availability condition of the buffer, sending the provisioned flow control message to the second node; and at the second node, continually comparing messages received from the first node against each of the provisioned flow control pause and resume message filters to detect the receipt of a respective flow control message, and upon detecting the receipt of the respective flow control message sent from the first node, taking a respective predetermined flow control action with respect to the transmission of user data to the first node, wherein (1) provisioning the flow control message comprises provisioning a predetermined portion of the flow control message, the remainder of flow control message being hard-wired, and (2) provisioning the flow control pause and resume message filters comprise provisioning a predetermined portion of the flow control pause message filter and a predetermined portion of the flow control resume message filter, the remainder of the flow control pause and resume message filters being hard-wired.