The present invention relates to a system and method of dispatching an IP
datagram comprising socks traffic on a socks server, in an Internet
Protocol (IP) network comprising a plurality of socks servers, the IP
datagram comprising an IP header comprising a Type Of Service (TOS)
field. The method comprises in a socks dispatcher the steps of retrieving
the value of the Type Of Service (TOS) field from the IP header of the IP
datagram and selecting a socks server referring to a first table, said
first table defining for each value of the TOS field one or a plurality
of socks servers. The IP datagram is sent by an IP network device with a
given priority. The step of retrieving the value of the Type Of Service
(TOS) field is followed by the further step of determining the priority
of the IP datagram by referring to a second table, the second table
defining a priority for each value of the Type Of Service (TOS) field.
The IP datagram comprising data according to a given application level
protocol, the step of determining the priority of the IP datagram
comprises the further step of determining the application level protocol
of data transported in the IP datagram by referring to the second table,
the second table defining a priority and an application level protocol
for each value of the Type Of Service (TOS) field. In case of congestion
in one or a plurality of output queues, the step of determining the
priority of the IP datagram is followed by the further steps of
discarding in the one or plurality of output queues IP datagrams having
the lowest priority until there is no more congestion, and discarding the
IP datagram when said IP datagram compared with IP datagrams in said one
or plurality of output queues, has the lowest priority.