Method, system, program, and data structures for managing hierarchical timing wheels

Disclosed is a method, system, program, and data structures for managing timers in timing wheel data structures in a computer readable medium. Each timer is enqueued in one slot in one of multiple timing wheels. Each timing wheel includes multiple slots and each slot is associated with a time value. Each slot is capable of queuing one or more timers. Each timer indicates a timeout value at which the timer expires. A register is decremented to zero and a determination is made of a current time. A determination is further made, in response to decrementing the register to zero, of a slot having a time value that expires at the determined current time. All timers in the determined slot having a timeout value expiring at the current time are then dequeued.