Patent ID: 7016302

Claim:
A method of controlling data traffic at a node on a network, said node having at least one output coupled to at least one link on the network, said method comprising: defining a bandwidth value for the at least one link related to a maximum amount of data to be transferred on the link; providing a plurality of queues for storing data to be transferred on the at least one link; assigning a queue value to each of the plurality of queues, each of said queue values being related to a preference for transferring data from its assigned queue onto the link; and assigning a data limit value to each of the plurality of queues, an amount of data being transferred onto the link from each queue being limited by the data limit value assigned to the queue, and each of said data limit values being derived from the bandwidth value for the at least one link, wherein if one of the plurality of queues has no data traffic, said queue's data traffic capacity is allocated among the other queues; characterized in that the queue value is selectively assigned to a specific queue based on preferences for transferring the data from its assigned queue onto the link, and further characterized in that after the initial queue value assignment, further changes to the queue value for each queue may be selectively changed based on other preferences for transfer of the data onto the link.