Abstract: A network traffic control system, where traffic can be controlled by allowing a rate limit for each of the communication ports to be arbitrarily set, even in the case that its switching processor does not support the rate limiting capability.

Abstract: A traffic shaping and bandwidth management in a communications network is provided. More particularly, a method for shaping the ingress traffic received at a first device is provided. A novel apparatus comprising a first network device, wherein the first network device receives ingress traffic to be traffic shaped is provided. In essence, existing switching chipsets can be used to implement ingress traffic shaping for a first port by connecting the first port serially to a second port and then using well-known egress traffic shaping methods at the second port. Egress traffic shaping, unlike ingress traffic shaping, is a technique readily available for existing chipsets so that, according to the invention, ingress traffic shaping can be achieved at the expense of an additional port per connection.