Other arbiters may be explicitly created in the policy for the purpose of creating an arbitrary bandwidth distribution hierarchy. The explicitly created arbiters must be defined within tier 1 or tier 2 on the policy. Tier 1 arbiters must always be parented by the root arbiter and therefore become a child of the root arbiter. Any child policers directly parented by a tier 1 policer treat the root arbiter as its grandparent. Inversely, the root arbiter considers the child policers as grandchildren. All grandchild policers inherit the priority level of their parent arbiter (the level that the tier 1 arbiter attaches to the root arbiter) within the parent policer.
An arbiter created on tier 2 may be parented by either an arbiter in tier 1 or by the root arbiter. If the tier 2 arbiter is parented by the root arbiter, it is internally treated the same as a tier 1 arbiter and its child policers have a grandchild to grandparent association with the root arbiter.
When a tier 2 arbiter is parented by a tier 1 arbiter, the child policers parented by a tier 2 arbiter are in a great-grandchild to great-grandparent association with the root arbiter. A great-grandchild policer inherits its indirectly parented tier 1 arbiter’s level association with the root arbiter and therefore the parent policer.
A child policer’s priority level on the root arbiter (directly or indirectly) defines which priority level discards thresholds are associated with packets mapped to the child policer for use in the parent policer (assuming the packet is not discarded by its child policer).