Patent ID: 7924860

Claim:
A network device comprising: a dispatch processor that receives data units associated with traffic flow classes; a plurality of parallel processors that receive the data units from the dispatch processor and generate, for at least one of the data units, a plurality of dynamically refined indications of the traffic flow class to which the at least one of the data unit belongs; and an ordering processor including: a plurality of re-order queues, the at least one data unit successively progressing through at least two of the plurality of re-order queues in an order defined by the plurality of dynamically refined indications of the traffic flow class; and where the ordering processor additionally includes: a plurality of input queues having outputs connected to inputs of the plurality of re-order queues, each of the data units being initially enqueued to one of the plurality of input queues based on information other than a content of each the data units. where each of the data units is initially enqueued to an input queue determined based on an input port at which the data unit is received by the network device.