Patent ID: 7349403

Claim:
A differentiated services device comprising: a traffic metering unit to indicate whether an information element in a flow conforms to a peak rate and a committed rate; a storage congestion metering unit to determine whether the information element should be accepted or discarded; and a marking unit to mark the information element with one of a plurality of mark values, wherein the marking unit is coupled to the traffic metering unit and the storage congestion metering unit; wherein the marking unit uses one of an output of the traffic metering unit and an output of the storage congestion metering unit, and one of a color-blind policy and a color-aware policy to determine with which one of the plurality of mark values to mark the information element; wherein the marking unit comprises: a multiplexer, wherein the multiplexer receives an output of the traffic metering unit, an output of the storage congestion metering unit, and a marking mode signal, and outputs one of the output of the traffic metering unit and the output of the storage congestion metering unit; and a color aware or color blind marking unit coupled to the multiplexer, wherein the color aware or color blind marking unit receives the output from the multiplexer, the marking mode signal, a marking instruction signal, and information regarding marking performed by an upstream device, and outputs the one of the plurality of mark values.