Patent ID: 7146425

Claim:
A method of performing admission control for traffic flows that encompass two or more service classes in a network, comprising: determining for each service class a first effective envelope associated with arriving traffic entering said network, where the first effective envelope is a function over a time interval that defines an upper bound on aggregate arriving traffic from a given service class; determining for each service class a second effective envelope associated with admitted traffic currently in said network, where the second effective envelope is a function over a time interval that defines an upper bound on admitted traffic from a given service class; determining for each service class a service curve by measuring departing traffic leaving said network; testing an admission control condition for each of the service classes, where the admission control condition is satisfied when the sum of the first and second effective envelopes for a given service class is less than or equal to the service curve for the given service class; and admitting said arriving traffic when the admission control condition is satisfied for each of the service classes.