Patent ID: 8903989

Claim:
A multi-device enclosure unit comprising: a common backplane; a plurality of devices that include ports to connect the devices to the common backplane; and a data-transmission-rate monitor connected to the common backplane, the data-transmission-rate monitor comprising: an electronic memory storing at least a specification of a predefined data-transmission rate configured for each device or port within the multi-device enclosure unit; a monitoring component to determine a current data-transmission rate for each device or port within the multi-device enclosure unit, and, in response to the current data-transmission rate for a particular device or port within the multi-device enclosure unit exceeding the predefined data-transmission rate configured for the particular device or port, transmit a pause command to the particular device or port; an interval-timing component to invoke the monitoring component at intervals of 1/n seconds during operation of the multi-device enclosure, wherein n is an integer greater than 1; and an accumulator component to, when a data transfer is received from the particular device or port by the data-transmission-rate monitor, add an amount of data transferred by the particular device or port in the data transfer to an accumulator that accumulates a total amount data transferred by the particular device or port during a current interval of time.