Patent ID: 7535912

Claim:
A switching unit comprising: a switch core fabric, an input termination module coupled to said switch core fabric, an output termination module coupled to said switch core fabric, said input termination module comprising: at least one ingress queue that backlogs data units bound to said output termination module, said switching unit further comprising as forming part of said input termination module and of said switch core fabric, at least point-to-point transmission means that conveys data units from at least said at least one ingress queue to at least said output termination module, said at least point-to-point transmission means being assimilated, with respect to said at least one ingress queue and to said output termination module, to a virtual ingress-to-egress pipe connecting said at least one ingress queue to said output termination module, wherein said input termination module further comprises a traffic analyzer coupled to said at least one ingress queue, and that measures at least one queuing parameter of said at least one ingress queue, and that detects a short-term traffic increase therefrom, and wherein said switching unit further comprises a bandwidth distribution means coupled to said traffic analyzer, and that, upon detection of said short-term traffic increase, temporarily disregards fairness while distributing to said virtual ingress-to-egress pipe an amount of a bandwidth remainder available through said at least point-to-point transmission means, thereby increasing bandwidth of said virtual ingress-to-egress pipe.