The 89TTM553 is a flow-based traffic management co-processor that can be used in conjunction with the 89TTM552. It has two major functional parts: the queue manager (QM) and the FLQ scheduler. The QM is responsible for all the non-bandwidth functions, which include managing up to 1 Million queuing structures, handling cell and packet arrivals and departures from these queues, and maintaining a database of congestion management and statistics parameters for each flow queue (FLQ). The FLQ scheduler is responsible for managing the FLQ bandwidth functions. The 89TTM553 FLQ scheduler supports traffic scheduling on up to 1M discrete flows. In addition to the scheduling levels provided by the 89TTM552, the 89TTM553 provides one or two levels of additional scheduling hierarchy. It also provides guaranteed minimum rate, maximum rate capping, excess rate distribution using weighted fair queuing (WFQ), byte rate shaping, and dynamic configuration adjustments. The 89TTM553 stores all the flow-based parameters (and state information) that are made available to the 89TTM552 for flow-based processing. When the 89TTM553 is used with the 89TTM552, congestion and bandwidth management features are enabled at the flow level as well as at the aggregate-flow level.