Patent ID: 8068417

Claim:
A method, comprising: measuring an average number of preference-bytes associated with an output port of a router for a predetermined period by averaging a series of products each resulting from a number of bytes of a flow multiplied by a flow preference of the flow; determining an average preference associated with the output port of the router by dividing the average number of preference-bytes by an average number of bytes for the output port of the router for the predetermined period; receiving a flow request; comparing a preference of the flow request with the average preference associated with the output port, the preference of the flow request identifying a priority of the flow request with respect to other received flow requests; and accepting or rejecting the flow request based on the comparison; wherein the router uses a plurality of preferences of received flow requests to determine whether to accept or reject the received flow requests and the determination of whether to accept or reject each of the received flow requests requires only a single computation and does not require a queue for each of the preferences of received flow requests.