Patent ID: 8638664

Claim:
A network device comprising: a port configured to send packets and receive packets within a communications network, wherein a plurality of packets comprises at least one packet traffic flow between two or more devices within the communications network; a plurality of multi-stage class of service schedulers, wherein each multi-stage class of service scheduler is associated with a respective class of service and each multi-stage class of service scheduler is configured to: regulate a respective packet traffic flow via at least either a first operation mode Or a second operation mode, select between operation modes, based, at least in part, upon a transfer rate of the respective packet flow with respect to a threshold transfer rate associated with the respective class of service, wherein the first operation mode comprises employing a first regulation model, and wherein the second operation mode comprises employing both the first regulation model and a second regulation model; and a shared multi-stage scheduler configured to allocate excess bandwidth amongst the packet traffic flows that are regulated by the plurality of multi-stage class of service schedulers.