MULTILEVEL COUPLED POLICER

A multilevel coupled policer is configured to police packets using at least two policing levels, including a first-level of class policers and a second-level aggregate policer. The multilevel coupled policer is configured to share bandwidth of the aggregate policer among packet traffic corresponding to the class policers based on the packet traffic. The multilevel coupled policer is configured to apply a particular class policer corresponding to a particular packet to identify a tentative policing action. The multilevel coupled policer is configured to apply the second-level aggregate policer to the particular packet based on the identified the tentative policing action and a result of a comparison operation of the number of tokens in one or more token buckets associated with the second-level aggregate policer and the length of the particular packet in order to determine a final policing action for marking and/or applying to the particular packet.