Patent ID: 7519727

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of managing bandwidth comprising: configuring a first set of parent filters, each parent filter corresponding to a parent traffic class and defining a set of filter criteria to be satisfied by values of a set of network packet components, wherein at least some of the filter criteria for each parent filter is specified as a wildcard or as a range of values; and processing a first network packet including: identifying a parent filter having a set of filter criteria that is satisfied by values of a first set of components of the first network packet; assessing whether a parent traffic class corresponding to the identified parent filter has a child traffic class corresponding to a child filter defining a set of filter criteria that is exclusively satisfied by the values of the first set of components of the first network packet; based on results of the assessing, dynamically generating a child filter that defines a set of filter criteria that is exclusively satisfied by the values of the first set of components of the first network packet and corresponding to the generated child filter to a child traffic class; determining whether the parent traffic class corresponding to the identified parent filter has a minimum guaranteed bandwidth; and based on results of the determining, setting a bandwidth of the child traffic class to be at least the minimum guaranteed bandwidth.