Patent ID: 7724667

Claim:
An Ethernet line card comprising: a priority allocation unit setting a priority of a received Ethernet packet according to a pre-set control standard based on header information of the Ethernet packet by allocating a priority label into the Ethernet packet, performing a filtering function in accordance to a function of statistics per port for the Ethernet packet; a quality of service (QoS) guarantee unit defining a capacity per class based on a pre-set QoS standard, determining an output order of the Ethernet packet in accordance to the allocated priority label, inserting into the Ethernet packet an inner label indicating a relevant output switch port, and dropping and managing the Ethernet packet based on the priority label when the Ethernet packet exceeds a capacity of a relevant class; a switch interface unit outputting the Ethernet packet to a relevant switch port based on the inner label inserted in the Ethernet packet; and a signal processing unit managing and updating the pre-set control standard and the pre-set QoS standard, receiving results of processing the Ethernet packet from the priority allocation unit and the QoS guarantee unit, and storing the received results.