Abstract: In a radio access network, techniques for enabling the network to provide a service availability guarantee to a user of a premium service without requiring the network to identify a priority level of a connection with an access terminal associated with the premium service user prior to connection establishment.

Abstract: The present invention provides improved work schedulers for computer systems and communication processors. A preferred embodiment of the present invention includes systems with buffer memory for storing one or more communication packets or work requests arranged on a plurality of scheduling queues and information for controlling the scheduling of the queues, with output processors for outputting packets from the buffer memory; and with control processors for performing the scheduling methods of this invention. The scheduling methods repetitively initialize each queue's service credits, repetitively process each queue in a round-robin order by granting each queue with remaining service credits no more than one quantum of service and updating that queue's service credits to reflect the service actually used and the service available for use but not actually used.

Abstract: The present invention provides switches and routers, preferably with fully-connected mesh fabrics, that transmit data through the switch fabric in variable-size data units. Variable-size data units allow switches and routers to provide throughputs close to hardware capabilities, eliminating the need for over-capacity hardware in the switch fabric and other components. Along with variably-size data units, preferred embodiments of this invention include scheduling methods that provide fair allocation of pre-determined bandwidths to different protocols, to different classes of service within protocols, and to different resources within the switch by use of certain weighted, fair scheduling methods. The switches and routers of this invention are particularly directed to multi-protocol, high-throughput communication applications, but may have wide applicability in systems generally where data packets are switched or routed.

Abstract: The present invention provides hierarchical structures of queues and schedulers for switches and routers with, preferably fully-connected, mesh fabrics, for efficiently and properly handling the quality or service requirements of multiple network services, such as ATM and IP, in switch or router. The switches of this invention provide, for example, fair allocation of bandwidths to different network services, to different QoS classes within network services, and to different resources within the switch by use of, preferably, weighted, fair scheduling methods. The switches and routers of this invention are particularly directed to multi-protocol, high-throughput communication application, but may have wide applicability in systems generally where data packets are switched or routed.

Abstract: This invention introduces an intelligent buffering sharing scheme that supports multiple service classes and multiple drop priorities per class. The available buffers are shared between different queues but at the same time every queue will be guaranteed a certain minimum buffer allocation. Other schemes presented in the literature to not address this minimum buffer guarantee in the presence of multiple service classes and drop priorities. In addition, the scheme presented in this innovation is based on a static threshold approach that has certain implementation cost tradeoff with another dynamic threshold approach presented in the literature that deals with buffer management in the presence of multiple service classes and drop priorities per class.