Timestamp metering and rollover protection in a network device

摘要

A network device for processing data on a data network includes a plurality of ports, configured to receive data from a data network and to send processed data to the data network, a memory management unit configured store data on and retrieve data from the memory and a metering unit configured to police a flow of the processed data to be sent to the network device. The metering unit is configured to utilize a series of leaky bucket units, where tokens are added to each leaky bucket unit only when that particular leaky bucket unit is accessed. The metering unit is also configured to add the tokens based on a prior timestamp value, a current timing value and an established rate and a multiplication to establish the tokens is accomplished by shifting a register of the established rate.