Patent ID: 7990988

Claim:
A scheduler for sharing a resource, comprising: a memory capable of storing waiting times associated with respective user-identifiers; a plurality of classes, each class having a first increment value; a plurality of FIFOs storing user-identifiers, wherein each FIFO is assigned to one of the plurality of classes, and each FIFO is associated with the first increment value of the assigned class; and a management unit configured to: designate one of the plurality of FIFOs as next to be served by the resource based on first conditions including a comparison of waiting times associated with each user-identifier stored in a leaving first position in the plurality of FIFOs, redirect the user-identifier stored in the leaving first position of the designated FIFO to a second FIFO, based on second conditions including a comparison between the first increment value associated with the designated FIFO and the first increment value associated with the second FIFO, and increase the waiting time associated with the redirected user-identifier by the first increment value associated with the designated FIFO.