Patent ID: 8208380

Claim:
A network device, comprising: a plurality of ports; a memory; a memory management system configured to: maintain, for each input port in a plurality of input ports, a respective circular buffer, and for each circular buffer, maintain i) a respective read pointer for each queue in a plurality of queues, ii) an oldest read pointer, and iii) a write pointer, wherein each queue corresponds to a respective output port in a plurality of output ports; and a controller configured to, for each input port, transmit i) a first command to halt transmission, by a remote node, of the data packets to the input port when a distance between the write pointer corresponding to the input port and the oldest read pointer corresponding to the input port is less than a first threshold, and ii) a second command to resume transmission, by the remote node, of the data packets to the input port when the distance between the write pointer corresponding to the input port and the oldest read pointer corresponding to the input port is greater than a second threshold.