Hierarchical shaping of network traffic

摘要

Stacked (i.e., hierarchically arranged) rate wheels schedule traffic flows in a network. A first rate wheel operates to efficiently schedule traffic flows in which traffic shaping parameters may be applied to individual traffic flows. A second rate wheel schedules group of the traffic flows in which traffic shaping parameters may be applied at the group level. In the context of an ATM network, the first rate wheel may operate at the virtual circuit level and the second rate wheel may operate at the virtual path level.

主权项

1. A device comprising:
a first structure, implemented in memory, to exclusively schedule data traffic flows of virtual circuits (VCs); and a second structure, implemented in the memory and arranged hierarchically relative to the first structure, to schedule groupings of the data traffic flows, the groupings corresponding exclusively to virtual paths (VPs), the second structure including a plurality of slots, the plurality of slots including a particular slot, the particular slot being associated with an offset value, and the offset value indicating a quantity of empty slots, of the plurality of slots, that can be jumped between the particular slot and a next non-empty slot of the plurality of slots when scheduling the groupings of the data traffic flows.