Combined hardware/software forwarding mechanism and method
US10243865B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Mar 9, 2017 |
| Grant date | Mar 26, 2019 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 4, 2037 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L69/22
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
A network device includes (i) a software forwarding engine, and (ii) a hardware forwarding engine, wherein the software forwarding engine is implemented using a processor executing machine readable instructions. The network device analyzes a header of a received packet to determine i) whether the received packet belongs to any flows of packets already known to the network device, and ii) a packet type of the received packet. The network device selects one of the software forwarding engine or the hardware forwarding engine to process the received packet based on i) whether the received packet belongs to any flows of packets already known to the network device, and ii) the determined packet type, including selecting the software forwarding engine when it is determined that the received packet does not belong to any flow of packets already known to the network device.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.