Patent ID: 7150021

Claim:
A method performed in an interconnect device to allocate resource capacity, the method including: generating a resource allocation table including a plurality of allocation entries indicating an allocation of the resource capacity to a plurality of resource consumers comprising a plurality of data streams supported by the interconnect device, wherein the resource capacity comprises bandwidth on a physical link shared by the plurality of data streams supported by the interconnect device; retrieving a ranking vector corresponding to a first allocation entry within the allocation table; generating a pending request vector indicating for which of the plurality of resource consumers a resource request is pending; and selecting a selected resource consumer to consume at least a portion of the resource capacity, the selection being performed combinatorially utilizing the ranking vector and the pending request vector, wherein the ranking vector is derived from the resource allocation table and comprises a list of resource consumers of the plurality of resource consumers, the list being ordered in accordance with an order of appearance of a first allocation entry for a respective resource consumer within the resource allocation table.