Patent ID: 8081645

Claim:
A method for processing multiple data packets, comprising: receiving from a network interface, at a packet management unit (PMU), a data packet for processing; determining whether to store or drop the data packet; queueing the data packet in a queue within a queueing system; preloading a portion of the data packet into a context from a pool of contexts in a stream processing unit (SPU); processing, by the SPU, the queued data packet referenced by the context; and outputting the processed data packet to the network interface, wherein the data packet has a data packet priority, comprising: sorting the queue based on the data packet priority of each queued data packets queued therein, wherein the preloading of the portion of the data packet into the context comprises selecting a data packet for preloading based on the order of the queue; and updating the order of the queue upon a change in status of a data packet queued therein.