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Managing a global forwarding table in a distributed switch

  • US 8,891,535 B2
  • Filed: 01/18/2012
  • Issued: 11/18/2014
  • Est. Priority Date: 01/18/2012
  • Status: Active Grant
First Claim
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1. A method comprising:

  • adding an entry in a global forwarding table in a distributed switch, wherein the entry includes a multicast destination address and multicast membership information, wherein the distributed switch comprises distributed switch elements, wherein each distributed switch element comprises;

    a plurality of switch forwarding units,a plurality of caches corresponding to the plurality of switch forwarding units, anda programming table corresponding to information programmed into the plurality of caches;

    starting a timer for the entry;

    when a miss event is generated by a first switch forwarding unit of the plurality of switch forwarding units that corresponds to a first distributed switch element of the distributed switch elements;

    programming the first switch forwarding unit with the multicast destination address and corresponding multicast membership information; and

    registering the multicast destination address and corresponding multicast membership information to create a registration, wherein the registering comprises storing the multicast destination address and corresponding multicast membership information in the programming table of the first distributed switch element, and wherein the registration includes a hit status;

    in response to expiration of the timer of the entry, checking a hit status of a cache of each of the switch forwarding units of the distributed switch to determine whether any switch forwarding unit of the distributed switch has forwarded multicast data to the corresponding multicast membership information of the multicast destination address of the entry; and

    determining whether the entry is a cast-out candidate based on checking the hit status.

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