Design and implementation of a flexible Queue Manager for Next Generation Networks

Next Generation Networks implies the need for new types of network managers. One approach creates a scalable, distributed Traffic Manager (TM) that can be programmed on demand. The core component is an efficient Queue Manager (QM) which is typically proprietary and costly. In this paper, a new QM architecture is given which is scalable and can adapt to changing network conditions. The design and implementation using current FPGA technology is outlined; performance and area figures are included as well as details of the implementation on the recently announced, NetFPGA-10G development board.