Patent ID: 7817550

Claim:
A method of rate-control for a group of n ports in a communication network, comprising the steps of: obtaining ingress-rate information of each of the group of n ports; distributing a communication message containing ingress-rate information of the distributing port; ramping, by a processor, an allowed-rate for each of the n ports, if the sum of the ingress-rates of the n ports, s, is less than a given rate threshold, G; and adjusting, by the processor, the allowed-rate for each of the n ports, if the sum of the ingress-rates of the n ports, s, is greater than or equal to the given rate threshold, G, such that the sum of allowed-rates of the n ports is equal to the given rate threshold G, wherein the group of n ports forms an aggregation-group, and the given rate threshold is a guaranteed-rate shared by the group of n ports, and wherein the step of adjusting further comprising the steps of, for a local port in the aggregation-group: determining a maximum allowed-rate X, such that X satisfies G=ΣRi (for Ri<X)+ΣX (for Ri≧X), or G≈ΣRi (for Ri<X)+ΣX (for Ri≧X), wherein Ri is the ingress-rate of port i (i=1, . . . n) in the aggregation-group, obtained in a rate-message distributed by port i; and assigning the allowed-rate of the local port a value of (MIN(Ilocal,X)+B), wherein B is an amount of rate increase per time interval t of duration T, and Ilocal is the ingress-rate of the local port for the current time interval.