US Patent 10050896 Management of an over-subscribed shared buffer

A method of managing a buffer (or buffer memory) includes utilizing one or more shared pool buffers, one or more port/priority buffers and a global multicast pool. When packets are received, a shared pool buffer is utilized; however, if a packet does not fit in the shared pool buffer, then the appropriate port/priority buffer is used. If the packet is a multicast packet, then the global multicast pool is utilized for copies of the packet.