Patent ID: 7218608

Claim:
A switch for a computer network, the switch to receive ATM cells from the computer network, comprising: a switching fabric to receive a cell at an input port, said switching fabric selecting a route there-through for said cell to an output port; at least one queue within said switching fabric, said queue having an associated threshold, said switching fabric to determine the number of cells present in said queue, said switching fabric further configured to determine if the next arriving cell for said at least one queue fills said queue above said threshold, and in the event that said at least one queue is filled above said threshold, then write a flag bit within said cell to a “set” state; and a traffic manager to compute a ratio of cells having said flag bit set to a total number of cells received at an output port, and in response to a value of said ratio, either discard said cell or forward said cell onto an output link of said computer network, said traffic manager to select a cell to be discarded on a random basis and absent access to the number of cells present in the at least one queue.