Hardware-accelerated packet multicasting in a virtual routing system
US8644311B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Apr 24, 2011 |
| Grant date | Feb 4, 2014 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | May 18, 2032 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC H)Electricity
- CPC primaryH04L2012/6489
- WIPO fieldDigital communication
- WIPO sectorElectrical engineering
Abstract
Methods and systems are provided for hardware-accelerated packet multicasting in a virtual routing system. According to one embodiment, a virtual routing engine (VRE) including virtual routing processors and corresponding memory systems are provided. The VRE implements virtual routers (VRs) operable on the virtual routing processors and associated routing contexts utilizing potentially overlapping multicast address spaces resident in the memory systems. Multicasting of multicast flows originated by subscribers of a service provider is simultaneously performed on behalf of the subscribers. A VR is selected to handle multicast packets associated with a multicast flow. A routing context of the VRE is switched to one associated with the VR. A packet of the multicast flow is forwarded to multiple destinations by reading a portion of the packet from a common buffer for each instance of multicasting and applying transform control instructions to the packet for each instance of multicasting.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.