Patent ID: 8315168

Claim:
A data communication apparatus comprising: a processor; a non-transitory machine readable medium having instructions stored therein, the instructions, when executed by the processor, result in the data communication apparatus: metering a first data traffic flow with a first two-rate, three-color meter (trTCM), wherein a first token bucket of the first trTCM has a first token capacity and a second token bucket of the first trTCM has a second token capacity; allocating tokens to the first token bucket of the first trTCM at a first rate and allocating tokens to the second token bucket of the first trTCM at a second rate; metering a second data traffic flow with a second trTCM, wherein a first token bucket of the second trTCM has a third token capacity and a second token bucket of the second trTCM has a fourth token capacity; allocating tokens to the first token bucket of the second trTCM at a third rate and allocating tokens to the second token bucket of the second trTCM at a fourth rate; reallocating tokens allocated to the first token bucket of the first trTCM to the first token bucket of the second trTCM when a token count of the first token bucket of the first trTCM exceeds the first capacity; and reallocating tokens allocated to the second token bucket of the first trTCM to the second token bucket of the second trTCM when a token count of the second token bucket of the first trTCM exceeds the second capacity.