Patent ID: 7636357

Claim:
A method of collecting consistent flow statistics through multiple physical-level congestion points within a multi-service switch/router, comprising: receiving a payload from a switch fabric of the multi-service switch/router, said payload in a given first encapsulation format having given ingress identifiers and, based on an examining of said ingress identifiers, determining an egress encapsulation format of the payload, an egress service identifier, and a payload priority; computing an egress length of the payload; converting the payload to a switch-internal encapsulated payload having an appended PHY-level indicating the egress service identifier and the egress length; performing a first priority-based transmission/discarding of the switch-internal encapsulated payload, at a first physical-level congestion point of the multiple physical-level congestion points, said performing including determining, based in part on the PHY-level header of the switch-internal encapsulated payloads, whether a transmit or a discard is required; performing a second priority-based transmission/discarding of switch-internal encapsulated payloads transmitted by the first physical-level congestion point, at a second physical-level congestion point of the multiple physical-level congestion points, said performing including determining, based in part on the PHY-level header of the switch-internal encapsulated payloads, whether a transmit or a discard is required; collecting congestion flows statistics, including collecting both a first physical level flows statistics based on the first priority-based transmission/discarding of switch-internal encapsulated payloads at the first physical level congestion point and collecting a second physical level flows statistics based on the second priority-based transmission/discarding of switch-internal encapsulated payloads at the second physical level congestion point within the multi-service switch/router.