Patent 7953001 was granted and assigned to Broadcom (company) on May, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
A network device for monitoring a memory partitioned by an identifier can include at least one port configured to receive at least one packet. The at least one packet includes an identifier relating to priority of the at least one packet. The network device can also include a buffer memory having at least one buffer configured to store the at least one packet, and a counter configured to modify a counter value therein when the buffer memory is accessed with respect to the at least one data packet, wherein the counter corresponds to the identifier with respect to the at least one packet.