Patent ID: 8730794

Claim:
A method of allocating resources in a plurality of transmission media, in which method data is associated with different classes of traffic, the different classes of traffic being associated with different priority levels, wherein resources are selectively reserved on the transmission media for traffic classes in accordance with the associated priority level; the method comprising; allocating, with a microprocessor running a resource allocator, a predetermined set of traffic to ones of the media; and responsive to a failure of a transmission medium, re-allocating, by the resource allocator, the predetermined traffic allocated to that transmission medium to one or more other transmission media in combination with the predetermined traffic allocated to said one or more other transmission media without changing the priority levels associated with the predetermined traffic; wherein in the event that the one or more other transmission media do not have the capacity to take the existing traffic in addition to traffic from the failed transmission medium, the combined traffic thus associated with any transmission medium is allocated thereto, by the resource allocator, in dependence on the priority associated with respective traffic classes, by: allocating a first traffic class within the highest priority level to the one or more other transmission media; determining whether the one or more other transmission media are full; if it is determined that the one or more other transmission media are not full, determining whether all traffic classes within the highest priority level have been processed; and if it is determined that not all traffic classes within the highest priority level have been processed, repeating the traffic allocation steps for the next traffic class within the priority level.