Patent ID: 8730813

Claim:
A communication system for performing packet-shaping on a packet flow, the communication system comprising: a first transmission apparatus to: receive, at a first transmission rate, packets belonging to a target packet flow on which packet-shaping processing for controlling network traffic is to be performed; store the received packets in a first packet buffer; and perform first packet-shaping processing on the target packet flow by transmitting, at a second transmission rate, packets that belong to the target packet flow and are read out from the first packet buffer; a second transmission apparatus to: receive, at the second transmission rate, packets that belong to the target packet flow from the first transmission apparatus; and store the received packets in a second packet buffer, wherein, when a shortage of buffer resource available for storing packets belonging to the target packet flow occurs in the first packet buffer, the first transmission apparatus requests the second transmission apparatus to perform second packet-shaping processing on the target packet flow, by transmitting a packet-shaping request message including a third transmission rate to the second transmission apparatus; and the second transmission apparatus performs, upon receiving the packet-shaping request message, the second packet-shaping processing on the target packet flow by transmitting, at the third transmission rate, packets that belong to the target packet flow and are read out from the second packet buffer.