Abstract: A method and apparatus for supporting connections on multipoint-to-point topologies is disclosed. A cell scheduler schedules packets from incoming VCCs for transmission on the order that a complete frame is available. Cells are received from a plurality of virtual channel connections. The cells for each of the virtual channel connections are stored in a buffer until a complete packet has been received. When a buffer accumulates a complete packet of cells for one of the virtual channel connections, the cells are scheduled for transmission. A complete packet is determined by looking at a packet type identification field. Cells forming a first packet for a first virtual channel connection are transmitted continuously until all the cells have been transmitted. A next available complete packet of cells is transmitted after the first packet of cells has been transmitted. A determination is made whether a cell is a data cell, an OAM cell, a Resource Management cell or a reserved cell.

Abstract: A method and apparatus is disclosed for providing fair traffic scheduling of L2 connections based on the number of IP flows and a priority coefficient for flow groups in the L2 connection. IP flows are scheduled according to a priority coefficient. The system identifies a number of IP flows for a plurality of connections, assigns a priority coefficient for each of the IP flows and schedules the IP flows according to the priority coefficient. The assignment of a priority coefficient results in a probability P.sub.i that a data unit belonging to a flow carried over connection A.sub.i will be selected for forwarding as defined by .sigma..sub.i *x.sub.i /.SIGMA.(x.sub.1 . . . x.sub.n), i={1,2, . . . n}, where x.sub.i is the number of flows carried over connection A.sub.i, .sigma..sub.i is the priority and n is the number of connections. The relationship between the number of flows x.sub.i and the priority .sigma..sub.i is defined by .SIGMA..sub.(e=1-n) (.sigma..sub.i *x.sub.i)/.SIGMA..sub.(i=1-n) x.sub.i =1.

Abstract: A packet based policing method and apparatus is disclosed which increases the throughput of a network by avoiding the waste of resources. The invention receives cells for a first packet at a node in a network, determines whether a non-conforming cell may be passed according to a running credit value, identifies whether a cell is conforming or non-conforming, passes the cell if the running credit value indicates that a non-conforming cell may be passed or if the cell is a conforming cell, borrows a cell credit if the credit value indicates that a non-conforming cell cannot be passed, wherein the borrowing of the cell credit allows the running credit value to be decremented until reaching a predetermined negative number and decrements the running credit value.

Abstract: A method and apparatus for performing packet synchronized switch-over is disclosed. The present invention eliminates packet loss by preventing frame integrity from being broken. Switch-over requests soliciting a change from a first virtual channel link to a second virtual channel link are received. After the receipt of a switch-over request, state information for identifying the occurrence of a frame completed state is monitored. The switch-over from the first virtual channel link to the second virtual channel link is performed when the frame completed state occurs. The frame completed state is detected by determining whether a current cell being received has an AUU set. The invention eliminates packet loss by maintaining layer frame integrity for both ingress and egress switch-over requests.