Patent ID: 7624187

Claim:
A method for providing Ethernet VLAN capacity requirement estimation, said method comprising: receiving a VLAN including VLAN access ports, VLAN switches and VLAN trunks, wherein said VLAN access ports include VLAN bandwidth requirements and VLAN class of service and said VLAN trunks include VLAN capacity counters and VLAN threshold parameters; receiving a target access port, said target access port including a target class of service and a target bandwidth requirement from a requester; determining a target trunk and target switch corresponding to said target access port, wherein said target trunk corresponds to one of said VLAN trunks and said target switch corresponds to one of said VLAN switches; calculating a bandwidth contribution of said target access port to said VLAN, said calculating responsive to said VLAN trunks, said VLAN switches, said VLAN access ports, and said target access port; and transmitting said bandwidth contribution to said requester; wherein said calculating a bandwidth contribution of said target access port to said VLAN includes: splitting said VLAN into two portions based on the location of said VLAN switches relative to said target trunk, wherein one portion includes said target access port and is an access port side and the other portion is a non-access port side; calculating a current access port side bandwidth requirement responsive to said VLAN; calculating a potential access port side bandwidth requirement responsive to said VLAN and to said target access port; calculating a current non-access port bandwidth requirement responsive to said VLAN; and determining said bandwidth contribution of said target access port by subtracting the minimum of said current access port side bandwidth requirement compared to said current non-access port bandwidth requirement from the minimum of said potential access port side bandwidth requirement compared to said current non-access port bandwidth requirement.