System and method for facilitating a dynamic policy engine with recursive key selection

A network device comprising:

• a processor;
• memory;
• a circuitry comprising:
• a set of hardware resources for storing a set of policy tables, a set of policy templates, and one or more counters;
• a communication logic unit to receive a user request to create a policy table, the user request including multiple groups of policy fields and specifying an amount of hardware resource for the policy table;
• a resource allocation logic unit to:
• in response to determining that an amount of unallocated hardware resource is less than the amount of hardware resource specified in the user request, free a portion of allocated hardware resources;
• and
• allocate the specified amount of hardware resource for the policy table;
• an optimized policy template selection unit to identify, based on the user request and a plurality of policy templates supported in hardware, an optimized matching policy template that accommodates the multiple groups of policy fields, wherein a respective policy template is associated with a different set of policy fields;
• a configure logic unit to configure, based on the optimized matching policy template, one or more hardware template registers;
• and
• a policy table create logic unit to create, based on the configured one or more hardware template registers, the policy table;
• a recursive key selection logic unit to:
• apply a recursive key selection algorithm to identify a matching policy template when the multiple groups of policy fields include a programmable component group;
• wherein while applying the recursive key selection algorithm, the recursive key selection logic unit is further to:
• identify a first mapping between one or more containers and a respective field in the programmable component group;
• identify a second mapping between a set of containers and a respective policy template in the set of templates supported in hardware;
• determine, based on the first and second mapping, the matching policy template by applying:
• a finder logic unit;
• a replacer logic unit;
• and
• a shuffler logic unit.