Alcatel-lucent Canada Inc.

Jordan (Jianping) Lu

Robert Elliott Robotham

Mustapha Aissaoui

Wladyslaw Olesinski

A method and apparatus for scheduling and servicing events using a calendar structure is described. In accordance with one preferred embodiment of the present invention, a calendar structure is provided to implement work-conserving methods (for example, queuing, such as fair queuing, or, as one specific example, weighted fair queuing (WFQ)). Such a calendar structure preferably provides two slots per tier and uses a temporal pointer based on virtual time. In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention, a calendar structure is provided to implement shaping of flows of information. Such a calendar structure preferably provides one slot per tier and uses a temporal pointer based on real time. For scheduling, a preferred occurrence time at which an event is preferred to occur is calculated. Events having preferred occurrence times farther from a current time value denoted by the temporal pointer are scheduled on a calendar tiers of lower resolution, while events having preferred occurrence times nearer to the current time value denoted by the temporal pointer are scheduled on calendar tiers of higher resolution. For servicing, the events are selected from slots to which the temporal pointer is pointing. If a slot is being used to schedule an event pending servicing, the slot is considered to be an occupied slot. Occupied slots at higher resolution calendar tiers are serviced exhaustively over occupied slots at lower resolution calendar tiers.

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Kanata, Canada

Jordan (Jianping) Lu