The IXP2XXX network processors allow you to implement traffic management efficiently on the network processor itself. This eliminates the need to add a separate hardware unit for this purpose and brings down the overall system cost. A rich set of traffic management features are possible. Since the entire feature set is in software, the system designer has the complete flexibility to customize the algorithms used.

This chapter described various elements of traffic management. It then examined the challenges of implementing these at high data rates. While traditional algorithms are directly applicable at low data rates, high-speed traffic management calls for new design techniques. This chapter discussed various design strategies for efficiently implementing metering, congestion avoidance, scheduling, and shaping at very high data rates. While the chapter focused mainly on design concepts, (Intel 2004g) contains a more detailed description of the algorithms and includes information on low-level data structures and pseudo-code.