Patent ID: 7123583

Claim:
A method of performing rate policing and re-marking of one or more data units at an ingress node of a communications network, comprising the steps of: receiving a data unit in a first data flow at the ingress node; extracting information from a header field of the data unit including an indication of at least one class of service requirement for the first data flow and an indication of the length of the data unit from the data unit header field; performing token bucket processing on the data unit to determine whether the data unit conforms to the class of service requirement for the first data flow, including the step of accessing a token bucket value for the first data flow and subtracting the data unit length from the token bucket value; in the event the data unit does not conform to the class of service requirement for the first data flow, accessing one of a first plurality of actions to be taken on the non-conforming data unit at the ingress node based at least on the service class requirement of the first data flow, the first plurality of actions including re-marking the data unit with at least one new class of service requirement and dropping the data unit from the network; and in the event the data unit conforms to the class of service requirement for the first data flow, passing the conforming data unit on the network.