摘要 |
A method and apparatus for supporting connections on multipoint-to-point topologies is disclosed. A cell scheduler schedules packets from incoming VCCs for transmission on the order that a complete frame is available. Cells are received from a plurality of virtual channel connections. The cells for each of the virtual channel connections are stored in a buffer until a complete packet has been received. When a buffer accumulates a complete packet of cells for one of the virtual channel connections, the cells are scheduled for transmission. A complete packet is determined by looking at a packet type identification field. Cells forming a first packet for a first virtual channel connection are transmitted continuously until all the cells have been transmitted. A next available complete packet of cells is transmitted after the first packet of cells has been transmitted. A determination is made whether a cell is a data cell, an OAM cell, a Resource Management cell or a reserved cell. When a cell is determined to be an OAM cell, a Resource Management cell or a reserved cell, the buffered cells are dropped, moved to a bypass queue or handled as other cells. |