Patent ID: 7317727

Claim:
A method for managing asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) traffic in a computer system, the computer system used in sending, receiving, or sending and receiving a plurality of ATM flows, each of the plurality of ATM flows having a plurality of ATM cells, the method comprising: determining whether excess bandwidth exists for the plurality of ATM flows, each of the plurality of ATM flows having a minimum ATM bandwidth guarantee and a maximum ATM bandwidth limit; gracefully increasing a portion of the plurality of ATM cells transmitted for each ATM flow having excess bandwidth, for each ATM flow having excess bandwidth, the portion of the plurality of ATM cells transmitted is not more than the maximum ATM bandwidth limit of the ATM flow and, responsive to the plurality of ATM cells presenting a sufficient offered load, the portion of the plurality of ATM cells transmitted is not less than the minimum ATM bandwidth guarantee of the ATM flow; and outputting the portion of the plurality of ATM cells transmitted for each ATM flow having excess bandwidth using a scheduler, wherein each of the plurality of ATM flows corresponds to realtime traffic or non-realtime traffic, for each ATM flow having excess bandwidth, the portion of the plurality of ATM cells are transmitted to a first queue for the realtime traffic or a second queue for the non-realtime traffic, and a first sum of the maximum ATM bandwidth limit for each of the plurality of ATM flows corresponding to realtime traffic plus a second sum of the minimum ATM bandwidth guarantee for each of the plurality of ATM flows corresponding to non-realtime traffic is less than or equal to a maximum capacity of the computer system.