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:
Oct. 12, 1999
Filed:
Mar. 20, 1996
Clifford James Buckley, San Jose, CA (US);
Israel Cidon, Haifa, IL;
Asad Khamisy, Fremont, CA (US);
Raphael Jona Rom, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA (US);
Abstract
An efficient, cost effective method and apparatus for performing resource allocation of available bit rate (ABR) virtual circuit (VC) in an asynchronous transfer mode (ATM) network includes an explicit rate switch process performed at at least one switch of an ABR VC. The process provides a fast and more accurate computation of the number of active VCs in an ATM network. Furthermore, the fair share allocation is calculated at the switch in a way that is efficient and lends itself easily to implementation in hardware. For example, in one embodiment, the fair share is implemented using a series of counters and registers controlled by a state machine. This simple hardware implementation enables fast convergence to a current final state so that timely accurate resource utilization and allocation to the ABR VCs can be determined.