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System and method for routing traffic through a virtual router-based network switch

DC
  • US 7,177,311 B1
  • Filed: 06/04/2002
  • Issued: 02/13/2007
  • Est. Priority Date: 06/04/2002
  • Status: Expired due to Fees
First Claim
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1. A method comprising:

  • establishing a packet flow cache having a plurality of entries each identifying one of a plurality of virtual router (VR) flows through a VR-based network device and corresponding forwarding state information;

    receiving a packet at a processing engine of a plurality of processing engines of the VR-based network device;

    determining one or more appropriate packet transformations for application to the packet by an ingress unit of a packet forwarding engine associated with the processing engine by performing flow-based packet classification on the packet;

    using a result of the flow-based packet classification to retrieve an entry of a plurality of entries of the packet flow cache;

    on a packet flow cache hit, determining, based on the corresponding forwarding state information of the retrieved packet flow cache entry, whether to software forward the packet via a processor of the VR-based network device or hardware forward the packet without intervention by the processor via a network interface of the VR-based network device;

    on a packet flow cache miss, identifying the existence of a new VR flow and upon successful allocation of a new entry of the packet flow cache for the new VR flow, forwarding the packet to software on the processor for flow learning.

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