Patent ID: 7142514

Claim:
A method of scheduling for servicing a plurality of output queues associated with a communications port, the method comprising cyclical steps of: selecting for servicing an output queue holding at least one Payload Data Unit (PDU) from the plurality of output queues, the selected output queue having an associated credit counter holding a lowest credit value; selectively incrementing the credit value held in the credit counter to account for the transmission of the at least one PDU having a length from the selected output queue; and periodically decrementing the credit values of a subgroup of the corresponding plurality of credit counters associated with output queues holding at least one PDU pending transmission in accordance with transmission bandwidth apportionments assigned to each output queue; wherein selectively incrementing the credit value held in the credit counter associated with the selected output queue comprises setting the credit value of the credit counter to the length of the packet if the credit value of the credit counter has a positive value, whereby selecting for servicing the output queue having the lowest credit value emulated weighted fair queuing is achieved in the long run with minimal computation.