Patent ID: 7801163

Claim:
A method comprising: defining, from a plurality of queues in a buffer, at least one group of the queues according to a size of each queue, wherein each queue in the at least one group has a corresponding ranking in the at least one group based on the sizes of other queues in the at least one group; allocating a portion of space in the buffer to the at least one group in accordance with a sum of a harmonic series that is based on the corresponding ranking in the at least one group, wherein the portion of the space in the buffer allocated to the at least one group includes buffer space that is not currently occupied by any of the queues in the at least one group and that is collectively available for use by any of the queues in the at least one group; and determining to accept a data packet into one of the queues in the at least one group based, at least in part, on whether an addition of the data packet to one of the queues in the at least one group will cause the space occupied in the buffer by the queues in the group to exceed the allocated portion of the space in the buffer that is collectively available to the at least one group.