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:
Jun. 03, 2003
Filed:
Dec. 18, 1998
Nortel Networks Limited, St. Laurent, CA;
Abstract
A scheduling apparatus, that can be used within a supertrunking capable Internet Protocol (IP) Forwarding (IPF) node, allows for efficient scheduling of packets for servicing after the packets are sorted into their proper order. The scheduling apparatus has a point and serve mechanism, a round-robin mechanism, and a starvation mechanism, and is to be used in situations where an IPF node is sorting and outputting multiple numbers of data streams. The point and serve mechanism directs two supertrunk pointers to the front packets of the particular data streams that the incoming packet segments correspond. The round-robin mechanism rotates a round-robin pointer between the front packets corresponding to all the different data streams. The starvation mechanism flags a data stream as starving if no packets have been scheduled after a predetermined number of times in which the round-robin pointer has been directed at the particular stream. Since only a limited number of packets can be scheduled for servicing at a time and each packet is not necessarily ready to be scheduled, the scheduling apparatus prioritizes the scheduling of the packets. First attempting to schedule the front packets selected by the point and serve mechanism, then the starvation mechanism, and finally the round-robin mechanism.