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. 12, 2007
Filed:
Feb. 22, 2001
Guy C. Fedorkow, Bedford, MA (US);
Gary S. Muntz, Lexington, MA (US);
Guy C. Fedorkow, Bedford, MA (US);
Gary S. Muntz, Lexington, MA (US);
Cisco Technology, Inc., San Jose, CA (US);
Abstract
A flow bit mechanism and technique conveys per-channel flow control information pertaining to the status of output buffers located on line cards to at least one performance routing engine (PRE) of an intermediate network node, such as an aggregation router. Each line card generates a flow bit for each of its output buffers associated with an output channel. The state of the flow bit denotes a threshold reading on the depth of the output buffer, which is preferably organized as a first-in, first-out (FIFO) queue. The depth of the output queue is compared with a predetermined threshold value. If the depth of the FIFO is below the threshold, the state of the flow bit returned to the PRE indicates that more traffic can be accepted for that channel. If the depth of the FIFO is above the threshold, the state of the flow bit indicates that further traffic is denied for the channel until there is more space on the queue. The flow bit reflects the current state of the associated output queue rather than the change in state of that queue.