The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Feb. 02, 1999
Filed:
Jul. 18, 1996
Robert B McClure, Hollis, MA (US);
Stephen A Caldara, Sudbury, MA (US);
Stephen A Hauser, Burlington, MA (US);
Thomas A Manning, Northboro, MA (US);
Fujitsu Network Communications, Inc., Richardson, TX (US);
Fujitsu Limited, Kawasaki, JP;
Abstract
A method and apparatus for controlling network service parameters in a cell based communications network. A plurality of input signals are received on input ports of a communications device and a plurality of output signals are sourced from output ports, wherein at least one input signal and at least one output signal comprise, respectively, at least one virtual connection. The communications device is part of a cell based communications network and each virtual connection comprises a series of data cells comprising a header portion and a data portion. A first virtual connection is assigned to an input queue of an input port and an output queue of an output port. Each queue is associated with a first buffer space dedicated to the respective queue. Each queue is also associated with a second buffer space that is shared between the respective queue and other queues. The second buffer space is utilized after the first buffer space becomes full. Data associated with the first virtual connection is queued in the input and output queues. The communications device also includes a switching fabric intermediate the input ports and the output ports. Bandwidth into the switching fabric is allocated by the input port, and bandwidth out of the device is allocated by the output port.