Patent ID: 7092395

Claim:
A method for processing a request from a first communications device for a virtual circuit through a network, said network having a plurality of nodes and links, each of said nodes having a plurality of output ports sharing a buffer having a buffer size, B, and each of said links being characterized by a bandwidth capacity, C, said method comprising the steps of: provisioning a portion, B i , of said buffer to each of said output ports, i, for use in a computation of effective bandwidth; receiving a signal representing a request for admission of a virtual circuit in said network for conveying data from said first communications device to a second communication device, the requested virtual circuit to be routed through an access regulator and at least one node connected to a corresponding link of said network, wherein data transmission characteristics of said access regulator are represented by a set of parameters; determining said effective bandwidth and buffer space requirements from said set of parameters, wherein a ratio of said effective buffer space requirement b 0 to said allocated buffer size B i is substantially equal to a ratio of said effective bandwidth requirement to said link bandwidth capacity C; and admitting said virtual circuit request if said determined bandwidth and buffer space requirements are less than available buffer memory space in said buffer and available link bandwidth capacity in said link.