Patent ID: 7362749

Claim:
A queuing congestion device to provide congestion management at an egress port of a packet switch, the queuing congestion mechanism comprising: a first queue having an input, an output, and a capacity, the first queue operable to receive packets of information of a first type at its input that are destined to be communicated to the egress port through its output; a second queue having an input, an output, and a capacity, the second queue operable to receive packets of information of a second type at its input that are destined to be communicated to the egress port through its output; a third queue having an input, an output, and a capacity, the third queue operable to receive packets of information of a third type at its input that are destined to be communicated to the egress port through its output, wherein the second queue has a priority intermediate to a priority of the first queue and a priority of the third queue; a scheduler operable to receive the packets of information from the output of the first queue, the output of the second queue, and the output of the third queue, and to communicate the packets of information to the egress port of the packet switch based on a schedule; and a queue shaper operable to set an adjustable rate in which the packets of information of the third queue are communicated to the scheduler, wherein a discard policy is enabled for the third queue based on the loading of the capacity of the second queue.