Time efficient counters and meters architecture

A method for metering traffic in a network device, the method comprising:

• accessing, using conformance circuitry, a first memory device storing a conformance indicator that indicates whether a permitted rate of packet traffic has been exceeded;
• classifying, using the conformance circuitry, packets received at the network device based at least in part on the conformance indicator;
• responsively to the conformance circuitry classifying the packets,
• sampling, using sampling circuitry, events associated with at least some of the received packets, and
• generating, using sampling circuitry, indicators of the sampled events;
• accessing, with update circuitry, a second memory device to update, at least based on the indicators of the sampled events, a number of tokens stored in the second memory device, the second memory device being separate from the first memory device and having a maximum access rate that is slower than a maximum access rate of the first memory device;
• and
• accessing, with the update circuitry, the first memory device to update the conformance indicator when the updated number of tokens indicates that the permitted rate of packet traffic has been exceeded.