Patent ID: 7609707

Claim:
A device comprising: an output to be operatively coupled to a plurality of traffic managers, each traffic manager of the plurality of traffic managers for managing communication traffic to be sent toward one or more destinations; and a controller, operatively coupled to the output, configured to determine a destination of received communication traffic, wherein the controller is further configured to determine whether a common communication traffic management function performed by a predetermined traffic manager of the plurality of traffic managers is to be performed for the received communication traffic, to transfer the received communication traffic to a traffic manager of the plurality of traffic managers for managing communication traffic to be sent toward the determined destination where it is determined that the common communication traffic management function is not to be performed for the received communication traffic, and, where the common communication traffic management function is to be performed for the received communication traffic, to forward the received communication traffic to the predetermined traffic manager, the predetermined traffic manager being operatively coupled to the output and configured to perform the common communication traffic management function, wherein each traffic manager of the plurality of traffic managers comprises a plurality of queues, each queue for storing communication traffic to be sent toward a respective destination, wherein the controller is configured to determine a destination by accessing a list of queues of available traffic managers to thereby determine a queue of the plurality of queues for storing communication traffic to be sent toward the determined destination, to insert into the received communication traffic an identifier of the determined queue, and to transfer the received communication traffic to the determined queue.