Patent ID: 7978607

Claim:
A method performed by a network device for controlling congestion, the method comprising: detecting occurrence of an event impacting a resource of the network device; determining a data source corresponding to the event; updating a resource utilization value associated with the data source based upon the detected event, the resource utilization value tracking an amount of the resource of the network device being used to process data originating at the data source; comparing the updated resource utilization value associated with data source to a first threshold; comparing the updated resource utilization value associated with the data source to a second threshold; sending a first message to the data source to either pause, slow down, or resume transmission of a first type of data based upon the comparison of the updated resource utilization value with the first threshold; and sending a second message to the data source to pause, slow down, or resume transmission of a second type of data based upon the comparison of the updated resource utilization value with the second threshold, the second type of data being different from the first type of data.